The evils of DLC finally show through.  This reason alone is why I will never, ever, ever, ever buy a game based on the promises of DLC.  I mean, WTF did devlopers do prior to this little half-assed gem they created?  Actaully develop a full, complete game?  My god!

I guess I could of beat the game in 25 hours, if i ran through it, skipping every cutscene, and skipping most of the side quests.  But at 42 hours right now.  I still have 1 more ide quest, and then im starting the final quest.

But everytime u start a new act, multiple freeform quests would open up, so i went back to every playfield and did them, i spent the time to do every side quest, evey companion quest, ect.

I dont care what RPG you play, if all you do is focus on the main story, it wont be as long as it needs to be.

You can beat ME2 in 20 hours or 35 hours, its all up to you.

Same thing with DA 2, 25 hours or 40+, your choice.

I played both games.  I played DA:O on PC, and personally after about half of the first one i found myself dragging on, having to force myself to complete it because I hated the combat so much.  Rather than become more difficult, they just through more and more enemies at you to compensate, and each and every battle became a battle of attrition.  I do think the story was better, and the fact that the world was so much bigger was a plus to me.

DA2 im playing on PS3, and though i wish the world was bigger(just cause it revolves around kirkwall, doesnt mean you cant have more playfields), and hate that they reverted to the ME1 style of recyling dungeons, I much prefer it to the first one, and have no doubt that im will play a second and possibly a third playthorugh just like I did with ME and ME2. Tthe combat is so much more enjoyable(little to easy on the normal fights, but the bosses are no joke, and cranking up the difficulty presents a huge challange), class customization is much better due to less restriction on how I build my character, fully voiced character is awesome, ect. I hate when any RPG features get stripped, but they stripped a LOT less here than they did in ME2.

  And just like in ME2, the people who are complaining about difficulty and lack of tactics need to crank up the difficulty,  thats how bioware is designing their games so that more people can enjoy.  ME2 was a diffirent game on insanity, DA2 is no different.

20-25 hours of gameplay compares to Fallout 3's 20 hours of MAIN STORY gameplay.  Thing is though, F3 also had about 10-15 hours of other content... BEFORE the DLC's.

I don't feel ripped off... enough has been different through my reroll that it keeps me interested.  But yeah, that's a little low for an SPRPG.

Far as the ending goes, yeah... I was really expecting that the big epic climactic showdown was coming AFTER the point in which the story is told; that we'd see and be a part of a huge epic rescue scene, then on to the grand finale.

However, I wouldn't say it was an incomplete game.  It just seems like if you expect the sequel to be bigger and more epic than the original(like most game sequels tend to be), you'll probably be disappointed.  And yeah, the immediate DLC, particularly in a game with lower "hourage", it's particularly troubling.

No, you can burn through the game doing every side quest and  watching every scene if you never die in under thirty hours. The game appears longer if you play it on hard of nightmare because the life bars of your enemies is made insanely huge turning them into something like raid boss fights in mmo's. Simply put on normal you will be done with this game well before the advertised 40 + hours.

Originally posted by Ragnaven

No, you can burn through the game doing every side quest and  watching every scene if you never die in under thirty hours. The game appears longer if you play it on hard of nightmare because the life bars of your enemies is made insanely huge turning them into something like raid boss fights in mmo's. Simply put on normal you will be done with this game well before the advertised 40 + hours.

Dying doesnt increase game time, you reload after a death, and my first 40+ playthrough was on normal, and i never had a party wipe.  I made a second character and cranked it up to hard(which is damn hard), and i expect even skipping cutscenes it will take a while.

So again, you would have to rush to beat it that quick.  If you spend time organizing your gear, tactics, and exploring(not truly exploring, more like revisting after each act), you will easily hit the 40 hour mark.

I have no issue with games that take 20+ hours for my first playthrough, my pace is incredibly slow but usually most of my fun comes from exploring the environment and doing side quests/minigames instead of watching the main story evolve (which is the reason it makes me go so slow, but most of the time I feel no need to go through a second or third time).

Less than that will require extra modes or stuff like that, I'd like at least 25 hours of fun for my $50. For $60 I'd probably want 32 or something, and for $10 I'm happy enough money-wise with 4 hours spent, though these $10 indie games rarely are that short. Sure, I can forgive shorter games, but this is all so subjective it's not worth talking about as measuring fun is pretty much an opinion.

P.S.: Yay me, 2000th post.

Originally posted by Swoogie

Now, I wont spoil anything story wise, but only 25 hours and Im done? At the end of the game, I was thinking that I was still going to go on, and it could ave perfectly continued from there. I dont get it. Would Bioware really rather make an expansion of what should be the last half of DA2 ? I took me 74 hours to beat DA:O. Really 1/3 of the gameplay? Its really upsetting.

so in this perspective, I'm dissapoint. 

 

Overall I did enjoy the game(as you can tell since I want MOAR!)

DA:O was even way faster on nightmare difficulty, bloody easy game dont surprise me DA2 is also fast.

Reason they can sell more DLC people these days wanne pay 50 bucks and 150 bucks for DLC so bioware knows this and make sure they get $$$ hahaha.

Bulletstorm and Dead Space 2 were exactly that way also. Seems some devs out there are not giving us value for our money.

Cleared it at 35 hours, with chantry historian and the archiologist achievement, the one for getting all 9 of the enigma of kirkwall parts which take skill to find, and I left no side quest undone except for the broken one in act three, never skipped a scene or anything. As to organizing gear I had blood dragon armor, to fallen, to stonehammer, to champion armor with my warrior, and I was a two hander weilder. My party was usually Varric, Anders, and either Avaline which had lion or orlais with fadeshear until she started with the sheild of the knight herself and the silverite one handers in early act three, or isabella.

I finished it at 38 hours. At least it isn't CoD with the barely 10 hours of gameplay.

I'm replaying it now at a higher difficulty, different class, and different personality. I don't feel ripped off at all.

Originally posted by SaintViktor

Bulletstorm and Dead Space 2 were exactly that way also. Seems some devs out there are not giving us value for our money.

i don't like this increasing trend of games having DLC, it seems like they sell you half a game, and then ask you to buy software patches to add content they should have had in the game to begin with.. kind of makes you wonder just how big the profit margins are on these things.. worrying really.. i enjoy single player games from time to time, but.. lately.. im wondering if they represent value for money at all.. glad i didnt buy DA:O2

36 hours, did everything except couple of quests, one was bugged and in the other I missed something, but anyways, its a joke compared to its predecessor.

They'll try to milk us dry with DLC.

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Really glad I haven't wasted money on this game. =s

My intent wasnt to swade people from buying the game because I really did enjoy the game. In many aspects more so than DA:O. However I was disapoint at the length when the game could have clearly gone on for another 20 hours but ended with a sequal/expansion/dlc teaser. 

Originally posted by Swoogie

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Really glad I haven't wasted money on this game. =s

My intent wasnt to swade people from buying the game because I really did enjoy the game. In many aspects more so than DA:O. However I was disapoint at the length when the game could have clearly gone on for another 20 hours but ended with a sequal/expansion/dlc teaser. 

Well it didn't have a place like the Deep Roads in Origins which extended that game by quite a bit.

I still think the game is worth it. I've played much worse games with less play time for similar prices.

Originally posted by arenasb

Originally posted by Swoogie

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Really glad I haven't wasted money on this game. =s

My intent wasnt to swade people from buying the game because I really did enjoy the game. In many aspects more so than DA:O. However I was disapoint at the length when the game could have clearly gone on for another 20 hours but ended with a sequal/expansion/dlc teaser. 

Well it didn't have a place like the Deep Roads in Origins which extended that game by quite a bit.

I still think the game is worth it. I've played much worse games with less play time for similar prices.

$2 per hour of game play, I still think its worth it :) Seriously look at a movie for only 1.5 hours of "fun"($13.75??) . I completely agree that it was a great purchase, but it terms of length I think Bioware cut this one too short. 

Dragon Age 2 is one of the worst sequels ever made. I cant understand how anyone can really enjoy it beyond act 1. The game is badly designed, under developed, and extremely consolized. Even the lead designer admitted they cut lots of corners just to pump it out in 1.5 years. Thats pretty bad, especially for the sequel to a blockbuster title with a huge following... which is probably why EA pushed them to make it different and in less than 2 years. The name will do most of the selling. 

Utterly pathetic. The game deserves the metacritic user scores of 4.0 and below. Biowares new mottos is, if it aint broke, break it.

I think what bothers me is the price of the game being $60 bucks for something that isn't even a full game come on who wouldn't agree that they could've sold it for 30-40 bucks and still sold alot of copies we're paying 60 bucks for a incomplete game if you ask me which is just alot of fail.

Originally posted by arenasb

Originally posted by Swoogie

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

Really glad I haven't wasted money on this game. =s

My intent wasnt to swade people from buying the game because I really did enjoy the game. In many aspects more so than DA:O. However I was disapoint at the length when the game could have clearly gone on for another 20 hours but ended with a sequal/expansion/dlc teaser. 

Well it didn't have a place like the Deep Roads in Origins which extended that game by quite a bit.

I still think the game is worth it. I've played much worse games with less play time for similar prices.

And what kind of reputaions do those studios have? BioWare/EA is starting to earn that rep.

I don't follow the logic that sense you choose to buy bad games its ok for BioWare to sell a mediocre game for 60 bucks.

 25hrs? How is it that most reviews mention it being around 70hrs.

 I decided on not getting this game myself, but I did a lot of researching before coming to a final decision, and you'd probably have to skip every optional thing in the game and rush it all on the easiest difficulty in order to pull that 25hrs off.

 DA:O also pulled the DLC card at the end of it too, a little bit with what's her face Morrigan, but for the most part.. in order to even touch your Warden's Keep talked about at the end you needed Awakening. Then when you get that it felt like 1/3 of it all should have been in Origins to begin with, and once getting it; it all hit you that the entire game was more or less jacked from NWN2 (which is why I think the Keep wasn't included in Origins).

 But DA2 even had launch day DLC, so it really shouldn't have been a shocker that the game was designed with DLC in mind even more so than the first game.

 Wow.. i'm starting to think I just got trolled, because I can't even believe i'm defending this game..

Maybe they should've named this game Dragon Age: Abortion  has a nice ring to it LOL