I'm Pissed

Read the title.... it sums up all my feelings toward Dragon Age 2. I may be a little late on the bandwagon but I decided to give DA2 another chance for a second playthrough not long ago and it brought up some unsavory feelings. I don't know how it happened, Bioware has currently built up a reputation of creating games with good stories and numerous choices but I felt both were severely lacking in DA2. In DA:O I ended up creating 5 separate playthroughs. You know how many I finished in DA2? One... and a half. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I played the complete opposite of my first playthrough and saw little difference, I actually found myself bored. It wasn't the recycled environments, it wasn't the bland art style, and hell it wasn't even the sub-par story, it was the lack of choice. No matter what I did there was this preset path that I ended up following. Even if I spared someone they would end up turning evil and I would be forced to kill them. No matter who I sided with near the end I had to kill everyone. I just ended up feeling that Hawke never really ended up doing anything except killing a crazy old lady with a glowy sword (which was not that much of an antagonist) and defeating a mage that turned into a hunk of meat. Here's another thing, I never felt that attached to Hawke. In DA:O there was so much customization in regard to the Warden, I had actually formed an attachment to my mute PC. Hawke on the other hand was a weak attempt to copy and paste the Mass Effect formula on to DA2. He was more like the Bystander of Kirkwall than the Hero. Sure he killed the Arishock (which actually had build up and felt like a much more competent antagonist) but for the most part just sat there and watched as shit hit the fan. Another aspect I felt lacking in DA2 were the romances. I don't really care about romances in my games but if they're going to be there they might as well be meaningful. Instead of having a character's personality define their sexual preference Bioware, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make everyone bi. I always pursue strait romances but it just seemed like lazy writing to me. Enemies in DA2 seemed much less formidable. Darkspawn no longer seemed that much of a threat and were instead changed to walking balloons filled with blood. Dragons (I mean come on, the freakin' franchise was named after them!) where handled poorly and barely felt that dangerous. Even most of the major boss fights were recycled enemies from the previous games and DLCs simply inserted because they were "epic." The gameplay? Meh... all they did was dumb down DA:O and turn it into a hack n' slash, there's not much to say about that. Well that about sums up my views on the huge disappointment known as DA2. I actually felt more disappointed in this game than Fable 3; at least they had a competent story, antagonist, and meaningful choice. Plus I can expect Lionhead not living up to their expectations, not Bioware though. They may not be my favorite game developer but they have a level of quality that is expected which they failed to reach. Hopefully they will learn from this and apply it to DA3. Unfortunately Bioware has lost some of the credibility I had in them so next time I will wait for the reviews rather than blindly pre-ordering the game before its release date. I don't know about you but I'm going to sell my copy of DA2 and wait until Skyrim comes out, a game I know will be good. Comments?