ive been thinking of buying me a new rpg, and cant decide between these two. so to anyone who has played both, please tell me your opinion of both.
if it helps, id have to say morrowind is my favorite rpg.

well in my opinion sacred is better then gothic 2.
sacred offers a huge world to explore and has a lot of hidden treats. The gameplay is great and easy to control.
Gothic 2 has a bit of a problem here with pathfinding and controlling the character. Timed clicks and it's difficult to dodge attacks.
Also the inventory is better in sacred then gothic. I'd suggest read around a bit , some reviews and decide afterwards.
Have fun

If you want something like Diablo, go for Sacred Gold.
If you want something like Morrowind, go for Gothic (Gothic is not the same as Morrowind, but it's way closer to it than Sacred).

Couldn't have said it better myself :D

i've heard gothic has quite a few issues tho....well i guess you could call them downsides. the control scheme and inventory stuff is a complete pain in the ass and the combat takes a while to get used to. if you like more free-roam open-ended type games then i'd say gothic, but as far as hack-n-slash awesomeness i would recommend sacred. personally i would rather get sacred.

Well. I think both Gothic and Sacred Gold are very good. I'd say pick Gothic if you are more into your character and the story, and like a more "intimate" environment. It's more RPG like. Sacred is a great "action" RPG. I never could get into Diablo for very long, but I love Sacred. It has a great deal of freedom, you can go anywhere, do the quests, don't do the quests, whatver you're in the mood for. It did remind me of Diablo a lot, but only because of the similar look and combat, the actual gameplay was much better to me and had a lot more of the RPG aspect in it. (But maybe I just never played far enough into Diablo?)
At GOG's prices, there's really no reason not to play both. ;)

Sacred isn't Diablo like and Gothic isn't Morrowind like.
Scared is an isometric RPG and Gothic is a first person RPG.
You need a different interface and keyboard/mouse control for an isometric RPG versus a first person RPG. Needless to say they both look different, but that doesn't mean thy both can't be RPG's. Just like Fallout 1 and Fallout 3 are both RPG's.
The fact is, a game that is isometric and based in a fantasy/AD&D world is not automatically a 'Diablo like' or 'Diabloesque' type game.
So instead of 'Diablo like' can we remember the word 'isometric' instead?
If you have any doubts about what I say, look at the user reviews for Sacred Gold on this site. I am generalizing, but they are all pretty much 'this game is like Diablo except for......' followed by two or three paragraphs on how the game is different.
It'd be like me saying 'it's a horse type character except for....' and then me saying it has a long neck, eats leaves off tall trees, comes from Africa and cannot be ridden, etc . Wouldn't you expect me just to say 'it's a giraffe'? Well, that's what I think about isometric RPG's like Sacred and Divine Divinity and Baldur's Gate and Planescape Torment. Let's just call them isometric RPG's!