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Blothulfur
Objectively you are writing about very subjective things. I can't enjoy DA because of it's generic plot, uninteresting characters and boring "tactical" combat. In DA2 i saw improvement in each of those areas. Observing conflict between mages and templars is for me more interesting than killing a dragon. Fast and flashy combat is better than poorly executed tactical combat and cartoony companions are better than blank stereotypes. As I said it's all subjective. You can completely disagree with me. Possibly you are voicing the opinion of the majority here. But just because of that You can't claim that reviewers who just like me liked DA2 did a bad job. Some of them might have been influenced in one way or another but I'm sure that some of them really liked this game and ultimately review is a subjective opinion.
Nope I am being objective Rhey.
Plot: Origins despite being generic was functional, DA2 was a clusterfuck, filled with plot holes, poorly written, no binding theme and a childish grasp of politics or even what makes a human tick. It was some of the worst plotting and prose i've ever seen, and i've read the Dragon Age novels, which I thought couldn't be topped in terms of poor writing. If you want examples of good plotting, narrative and themes binding these together simply play the Witcher's, they're head and shoulders above this. The plot is just poor, it's an objective fact, you might like it but that still doesn't wave away its faults. The templars and mages were both portrayed as idiots whom nobody reasonable would side with, Dragon fights stayed the same between games mostly, except with more waves in 2, and they have nothing to do with the infantile attempt to make these two sides interesting and nuanced, which failed massively.
Characters: I detest most of the squeeing simpering simpletons, spouting their moronic one liners that Bioware passes off as companions, they're over simplified caricatures aimed at the lowest common denominator. However at least in origins three of them stood out as useful informative and with some complexity, those being Morrigan, Shale and Sten. They were useful, had unusual personalities for Bioware, represented and introduced their point of view very well, those being apostasy, dwarven golemcraft and the Qunari, and also had unusual twists, such as Morrigans hidden agenda, Shale's gender and Sten challenge of your authority.
In comparison the idiots of DA2 had no reason for being with you or accepting your orders, yet came and went for years at a time at your say so, could not deal with any personal matter by themselves even courtship, abandoned jobs and responsibility to go squeeing and slaughtering with Hawke, you could not even talk to them unless they started a conversation, several of them could not even armour or dress themselves appropriately for the climate or combat occuring every ten feet in Berkwall. All told they were once again a significant degeneration, it's objective fact that they were much worse again.
Combat: The most boring, mind numbing clusterfuck imaginable. Kicked off every ten feet, with waves throwing themselves out of the sky and walls, while you yawned and popped another cooldown, then waited to do so again. To add insult to injury they removed finishers, implemented flashy childish animations to wow the ADD crowd and gave no other option to resolve encounters except through this painful tedium. Once again this is just objectively poor, if you liked it then you owe it to yourself to improve your taste with some good turn based like Jagged Alliance 2 or a fine hack and slasher like Severance: Blade of Darkness. After playing these you'll laugh at this clumsy abortion.
Edit: Sorry if any of this upsets you (though I don't know why it would?) but it's about time we stopped giving badly designed games praise, and judged their individual part objectively or strived to as much as possible. Certainly journalists have a duty to be objective not subjective, and no amount of arguing bias should excuse them failing to exercise journalistic impartiality and aiming for objectivity.
And if they are not objective to a large degree, then they are unfit for purpose and should recuse themselves if they have any ethics.
