First, it's hardly The Escapist and their reviewer's fault that Metacritic took their review, "translated" 5/5 into 100/100 and slapped it on their site. So don't act as if it is.

Second, "true scale"? What the hell? All reviews of entertainment products (and most other products for that matter, including, say, cars) are subjective, there is no such thing as a "true quality" of a game or any other entertainment product. It's all in the eye of the beholder.

I read the JeuxVideo review, the chapter about the combat closely mirror my feeling while playing the demo. Disabling the tactics and trying to control tactically your companions one by one was painful for them too...

However I am glad to see that I am not the only one with the "companions stop fighting randomly" issue.

Well it seems to me like this happens whenever they make a sequel to their own game (not MDK2, however, that was rather awesome). They should stick to creating original, creative, different content rather than sequels.

I'm on the fence about this I don't much care for the having to constantly push A just to attack on the console version, plus watching the video I can't really see the difference in graphics between DA:O and DA II but either way I'm still waiting for the Ultimate Edition cause I'm not wasting 100+ bucks on DLC add-ons and expansions this time around.

(Apparently) bad localization issues aside, from all the reviews i saw out there theirs is the one closer to my all around expectations of DA2. I specifically like how they point out how DA2's main problem, personal expectations aside, is the overall (lack of) quality, which is intimately tied to the short dev cycle.

Many of the things people are now 'complaining' about shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, there's only so much you can do in under two years or so, and not even Bioware can perform miracles time wise.

Yeah, they apparently have the same gripe you have with companions interrupts ;)

Another game where it would seem the developers aimed the sequel at those customers who weren't convinced to part with their cash the last time out. Why are developers more concerned about the sales they didn't get rather than building a game squarely for their original audience; especially when DA:Origins earned Bioware a big fat pocket of pretty green.

I thought the skills of the original could have used some work but i really enjoyed the challenging combat, crafting and even spending 20 minutes sorting through a cluttered inventory or mix and matching different pieces of armour for my team.

Bioware never seem short of ambition or shaking up a new recipe for their titles, i just wish they didn't shake quite so hard at times. Still, it does sound like another well presented story-driven rpg and that is what keeps me playing till the quest is done. And no doubt i will get used to the new game mechanics and start complaining when they are not re-introduced in DA 3:Tales of Dwarves And Other Hairy Folk.

Not that I enjoy tearing up your opinions, but I think that was kind of the point from Bioware's point of view. Rather than have Urdnot Wrex done up in some pink/white shit that made him look like a gigantic baby reptile girl, they wanted to keep the appearance of your team canon. I actually felt kind of cruel having him don that crap. But it was the only decent armour I could get for him.

It's also something which seems to have actually profoundly increased the diversity of the appearance of your team over the rather more samey ME1. But yes, then there are those DLC skins that suggest that some variety could have been implemented into the core game without buggering things up completely in that regard. But to me it made sense that I couldn't dictate their wardrobe to them.
Two words: publicly traded.

I swear shareholders are actually a cancer crippling many industries with their incessant money grabbing.

Ok a few people have expressed their confusion on this already, but I'm going to do it again anyway.

What are you talking about? Movie , book and music reviews are the same way. they don't use
"truescale" either. This is not just something that is unique to gaming reviews

I still put that down to the poor way loot and inventory was implemented in ME1. They could certainly have done better than making Wrex look like a novelty condom. If they had the random loot similar to Shepards modular armor upgrades in ME2 but for everyone it would have been a vast improvement. They could have kept the identity of say Thane but give him the option of using the eyepiece that grants 10% headshot damage. Would have looked cool and would have been in character for an assasin. Plus the capability is there in the engine as Thane's alternate appearance has him wearing sunglasses.

It's a good enough Action/FPS game.

I agree with this. I got the game last night, played for like 3 hours into the game as a mage on Nightmare. They removed a load of stuff that can be found in DAO. I don't see any skill window at all. The companion armour inventory is definitely removed, it's now a big square telling you what armour he's wearing, nothing else. The conversation system is a huge ass. Your companions come with their own specalisations like in ME2, you can't spec them like you would in DAO. I'll post my main post about the game in the other thread.

Their armor upgrades, there are squares below each outfit that shows the potential (I assume).

Overall I am very much liking the game. It is not the same game as Origins, nope... it is more streamlined, yes... I still like it.

I'm guessing Bioware will have to do one more call to arms to keep the Metacritic users rating tor drop below 3.5 :|

Holy crap! If reviewers and players are disagreeing that much, in that direction, something is afoot. I'm not saying what, but that's very "off".

Now, I am used to seeing bad review scores and a small group of users giving way higher scores, because, they're genuinely a demographic that enjoyed the game.

EDIT: After skimming some metacritic user reviews, sounds like a core fanbase was alienated, which is predictable given Bioware's change in direction for gameplay. At least the negative user reviews went into some detail, generally, all the positive user reviews just said crap like "A great action joy ride and an amazing sequel to the a great game and this 4.6 rating is unacceptable." Wow, color me convinced!
I'm with you on this, I'll be buying the GOTY next Black Friday or something. I hear there's paid DLC already. Tell me, did they at least have the decency to not include it on the disk?