Here's the thing: These games are not about story. Go into these games expecting a good story and you will be disappointed; go in expecting lots of combat and not much story and you will appreciate these games a lot more.

As I said in the other thread, if you are looking for story with little combat, Planescape: Torment is a better choice.

What happens here is people play BG and then expect IWD to be similar simply because it uses the same engine. A logical fallacy to be sure but it doesn't stop people moaning about it.

Just my opinion but people really overstate the quality of BG's story writing, it's standard fare DnD at best and downright insipid at worst. However, I've already beaten this to death in another thread so I'll stop here before I start getting ahead of myself.

already played planescape. it's the best!

I do remember IWD as not remotely as narratively engaging as Baldur's Gate or (of course) PS:T. But, the worst D&D game by far was the 2001 remake of Pool of Radiance (Ruins of Myth Drannor), which is not on offer here. Boy, what a stinker. Actually kept me off FRPGs for a few years, it was so bad.

I think Daishaclaire points out something quite crucial to this debate: About the games being narratively engaging.
Because that's were BG and IWD differ tremendously, but it might not look like it at a first glance, since "narratively engaging" is often confused with "good story".

Because, if you look at it more closely, the story (i.e. plot) in BG2 (which is often lauded as having one of the best stories in RPGs) is rather average and predictable.
Heck, the essence of it gets spoiled for you during the introduction cinematic and the epilogue! "Your character has unique powers; a mad wizard wants to steal those powers from you and had you kidnapped for that very reason. Now you must escape!" Gee, I wonder how that story plays out? ;)
However, where BG2 really *shines* is in it's narrative, i.e. how said plot is presented to the player. Also, there's party banter and romances that further add to this - and those were fairly new at the time of the games original release. That's, in my opnion, why so many fondly remember BG2's story.

Icewind Dale, on the other hand, doesn't feature any of this. No personal narrative, no engaging party members. But the plot is there, if you pay attention to it. I'd even argue that it isn't any worse than BG2's. Nor does this make IWD a worse game - just one with a different target group in mind.

However, since both games share the same game engine, gaming world and rules (mostly), it's easy to assume that both should have the same strenghts and weaknesses and gameplay. But they're actually very different.

Personally, I'm glad for it, because I vastly prefer the kind of game that IWD is and I think it's great that we got so different games! That way, everyone can play the way they prefer. That's great, no? :)

It's actually this sort of thing that has caused me to quit playing Baldur's Gate 2 multiple times. In particular, the party banter is annoying when I am trying to do something else. The story is essentially told as random interruptions, which I find to be even more annoying than the non-random interruptions found in most JRPGs.

(It's also worth noting that there is one part where there was a cutscene, followed by a part where the game arbitrarily did not allow me to save, followed by a battle that resulted in a game over, forcing me to watch the cutscene. Very bad design (or a nasty bug) there.)

Well, the only time I've been able to complete BG2 was when I created my own party froms scratch in multiplayer mode.
Though I DO want to give it another try, sometime! :)