Dragon Age 2 - Review at RPGCodex

Vault Dweller has posted his review for DA2 on the RPGCodex.

He likes the setting and the story:

I’d say it’s one of the more interesting settings for an RPG and it does manage to raise interesting questions, questions without an easy answer. The potential is there, but it’s wasted on an action RPG where you kill bad guys and monsters instead of exploring the ethics of the society Bioware created.

He's not too happy about the gameplay:

Unfortunately, despite a refreshing move away from epic clichés the story lacks cohesion and a direction, feeling more like a chain of random events than a overarching narrative. Things just happen around you, often without a clear reason or a warning. Maybe it is the execution that’s lacking or the focus on combat and lack of free exploration of the world and its characters that get in the way, but the end result is often jarring. The prized "immersion" is rarely present.

He finds the game challening on hard:

The game is challenging on Hard (though it would have been nice if friendly fire had been enabled there too), but the challenge comes not from the ruleset as it does in Dungeon & Dragons games and not from well-designed monsters with a variety of abilities as it does in Diablo-like games, no, it comes from the sheer numbers of enemies zerging your party and from that second wave of enemies spawning in all around you, literally out of thin air in most cases, which is the laziest design possible.

And the conclusion:

Even though the setting and the events are interesting, and the various options show potential, the overwhelming focus on killing things keeps you from digging into the world and its characters in a satisfying manner, and cripple replayability. Unfortunately, the combat is too repetitive to carry the game on its own. It's bad enough that even the mainstream reporters have noticed, though they are generally quick to make excuses.

Thanks to Akulakhan in this thread on the Bioware DA2 forums for finding this.