I was thinking about getting Gothic 2, but not the other games in the series. If I skip Gothic 1 and 3, will Gothic 2 feel like an incomplete experience? Does it have a good ending without cliffhangers that can only be resolved by playing 3? Thanks for your replies.

Gothic 2 is best paired with Gothic 1, but it still stands well enough on its own (and I would consider it the best of the Gothic games). Not having played Gothic 1 you won't be familiar with many characters you'll come across along with the events that transpired, plus a large area of the game is straight out of the first game, and it's rather neat going through it and seeing the changes that have occurred. However, you can still enjoy the game just fine despite all of this. As for the ending, while it definitely alludes to things to come it still wraps up the particular story arc just fine, so I wouldn't call it a cliffhanger by any means. On top of that Gothic 3 didn't actually do that much with what was alluded to, since it ended up being structured a bit differently from the first two Gothic games.

Ultimately, if you're only planning on playing a single game of the Gothic series then I'd consider Gothic 2 to be the best choice.

Thanks, that clears things up a lot.

Totally playable alone. They recap the story quite well at the intro and reintroduce any characters thoroughly.