It sure had awful parts but it also had others that were decent. I'd rate the NWN2 OC higher than the awful NWN OC, but the point is a bit moot when you consider that both are mediocre.
MotB is one of the best CRPG that came out these last years, and that is without being compared to the mediocre OC. The setting is different from the standard fantasy fare you find in other offerings, the story is great, characters are fleshed out with good dialogs, nice use of skills, choices and consequences, awesome time limit system, etc.
It actually blows it out of the water. The idea that BG is one of the best CRPG EVAR! is often tossed around but rarely rationalised.
It has good ideas but often a poor execution. I had fun with it, mostly because it had some fresh ideas, but they could have been used so much better and the end result is barely decent. The NWN2 engine isn't really suited for that kind of game and it would have been a better idea to develop a new engine suited for that kind of game. A full-fledged game of that kind is actually quite interesting but probably more risky than what is commonly accepted now.

I guess it's a matter of taste on that one, trying to replay NWN2 is something I'd rather not do anytime soon.
Have to disagree here, I couldn't necessarily say it was the best ever, but it is quite possibly my favourite.
Only really dipped my toe into it so far, but I do like it. It's just a bit different to most modern RPGs.

I guess. While I have no plan to replay any of these two soon, I know that if I had to chose I'd pick the second one and never ever touch the first one again.
Preference and excellence are two different animals.
I found it easy to like despite it's problems, but then again I'm a sucker for exploration, dungeon crawls and stuff like that. I also wish that features like the overland map (great use of skills, there) and conversations involving the whole party become a staple of the genre in the near future.

Totally agree there, it does add another dimension to it. It really involves the other members of your party, in a way you usually don't see outside of scripted events. Also, as I mentioned before, I think the overland map is a great invention, makes exploration worthwhile and fun.
I doubt they will catch on in a big way though, which is a shame. I'd like to see more innovation like that, rather than the Mass Effect "cinematic" direction (again, personal taste here).

On topic:
This isn't so much a cliche as it is an expectation: Videogames based directly off of movies are not as entertaining as the movie was. This goes both ways; movies made off of videogames tend not to be so hot.

That final boss dragon thing/your parents is annoying because of that super powerful attack that can instant rape your entire party. But then your other party comes in. :D

The armor on the almost always buxom female warriors that wouldn't hinder any type of attack. Except maybe the ones armed with a butter knife.
The combat that doesn't alert the group of enemies in the room down the hall, or around the corner.

Every game tries to implicate the possibility for stealth, then fails.
Example- Far Cry 2.

I have never played a game that accurately portrayed the effect of bullets on people. I don't just mean in terms of gore; I mean that people can be shot multiple times in crippling areas and still function perfectly well.
As a sidenote, I'm not that good of a shooter; I tend to aim low. If I'm not deliberately aiming for the head, most of my shots tend to go in the crotch area. My foes have yet to be adversely affected by this.

yes....
unless you are an orc with immunity to magic. they just made everything a bit darker :) (quite a pain in the ass to play the game during the day in summer but otherwise... hax boots)

Evil henchmen are all eunuchs?

I know. What I meant is that usually to avoid monotony, the monster killing is nicely blended into the story, as in it's necessary to complete the errands you are assigned, or to move the story ahead. The cliqué is that at some point, the developers just ran out of ways to disguise the monster grinding into the story, and just let you know that you have to run around and level up your character until you reach the necessary level to continue the story. Like in Gothic 2 for example. The point where all the 3 wizards get together to repair the Eye of Innos. Xardas tells you he won't join them until he's certain you can defeat the dragons. That's the game telling you that you have to level up your character either by doing the sidequests, or by just random monster killing.

A couple of games I've played have had sectional damage like that, I think Project IGI was the one where I used to take perverse pleasure in the long range nut shot

What effect did that have?

They died but sometimes when you hit them just right they did so in an amusing way where they went down clutching their groin