DA2 will reference the first one but only in broad terms, nothing specific. Should be fine. Agreed, I really enjoyed the game despite all the flaws and issues. The DLC was VASTLY improved as well, which gives me hope for DA3 being the best of the series.

Have you played the last DLC? I still haven't gotten around this one. Tbh, the whole Felcia Day hype put me somewhat off.

Thanks very much for all the feedback guys. I get the feeling I'll have the best experience actually, as someone above mentioned, by playing the second game first and then enjoy the best for last. I'm glad to hear in this case that the stories are not related to each other. That works out nicely. The game looks fun enough to me from reviews I've read and videos of it I have seen. I think I am probably not quite as particular as some. I also won't be going into this with any particular expectations based on the first game which I plan to play later. Thanks again for the info!

Most pepole bitch about hack'n'slash combat. It's hack'n'slash combat, but I liked it. There aren't plenty of good hns games on PC.

What is really, really bad, it's the LOCATIONS. There are only few, you mostly go back and fourth through them, they all look GREY. Backtracking through all this ugly ass locations was the worse game experience I've had in years.

The story is quite good, by the way.
It's not a big deal, actually, because DA:O DLCs were simply awful. But the expansion (Awakening) for DA:O was way better than any other DLC Bioware made recently.

Yeah it was pretty good. Some sappy story stuff, but you can tell the offender to piss off and actually mean it. I didn't know who Felicia Day was and still don't really, but the character in the game is okay in that obviously-written-by-a-liberal-arts-grad way.

My main issues with DA2 were the waves of enemies, the bland and repeated environments and the lack of consequences for choices. The DLC fixed all that, so it was very welcome. If your issues with DA2 go further like the speed of the combat or art style it might not be as improved.

Exactly, it's not the combat system itself that is bad. The problem is the encounter design with its never ending waves of enemies, which results in almost every battle playing out exactly like the last one; the only difference being the presence of an enemy mage once in a while. Bland and boring, not to mention the fact that you off about 40-50 guys in many encounters, and that is beyond ridiculous.

Well for me there was two game breaking things:
Level design and characters.

Level design:
Levels are empty and looks like they were rushed (because they were, game was developed in less than 1 and half year). Textures are extremely clean (like cleaning team just left the place) and there are almost no any details in locations. Because of that locations looks like a set from elementary school performance.

Characters:
They are way worse than in DA:O and there is no even comparison between them and companions from ME2. We have emo guy who whine for a whole time, elf from Final Fantasy with HUUGE sword and the only likable character is dwarf without beard (blasphemy! :D).
But the worst thing are females. There are two female romance option. One is STD container that probably had a sex with everyone in the city and second one is small cute, silent elf girl that act like a little child (come on, I don't wanna be pedobear). But if you don't like those 2 girls you always have 4 gay options to sleep with ;).

Fighting is terribad for me too but for game that is based on never ending waves of enemies that fits better than solution from DA:O. Even with two button spam I was bored with fights after 2h of game, so I can't imagine playing DA2 with combat system from DA:O that need your involvement.