Let's just say that the game does not get Origin's warm reception. Metacritic user scores in particular are brutal, even if you ignore the idiotic trolls who signed in on launch day, only rated DA2 and put a 0 or 1 on the game with a ''shit sux'' comment or somesuch. Definitely Bioware's worst rated game overall, even by official critics.
Myself, I like it so far, nothing more. The worst flaw, of course, is the massively recycled environments; by the end of Act 1 of 3, you have apparently been everywhere, and even inside Act 1 some areas are still re-used (I shit you not). This is a clear sign of the game being rushed (hell, Inon Zur confirmed he had to work as fast as possible somewhere, even if imo it doesn't show that much).
It's still better than Jade Empire or the clusterfuck that was ME1, if you ask me. Combat is overall improved, with more build flexibility (mostly, some characters like Aveline are stuck in the tanking department, others like Merill and Carver are far more open), faster paced and more tactics are required because it's just plain harder (Hard in DA2 gives me a bit more trouble than Nightmare in Origins, and there's not even Friendly Fire at that setting). A gripe of mine is also reinforcments appearing mid-battle. Sometimes it's justified, like bandits dropping from buildings, but it's used way too much, some fights having 3 separate waves of additional enemies spawning right on top of your mages and rogues. What could have been an interesting mechanic is reduced to being a stale gimmick because of over-use. Pity.
On the other hand, I dig the new art style too (except the animations and Darkspawn, of course), the new Qunari and the 2D narration being stand-outs. Also, I much prefer DA2's elves over Origin's, LOTR or The Witcher's humans with long ears. It's true they do look like Navi, though.
About difficulty, Hard was a balanced and fun difficulty so far, but the boss at the end of Act 1 was a huge difficulty spike. The encounter design was very interesting, but it drags on for so friggin long (30 good minutes, serious there) that you eventually run out of consumables and get butchered. Shaving off half that boss's HP would have made it far more enjoyable. Still, Act 1 finished (
at what happened, too), and 21 hours in.
Oh, and while little ol' me got a Steam copy and has no worries about that, I will add fuel to the fires here; DA2 PC has SecuRom included in the disc, despite Bioware officials claiming, literally, that this would not be the case. This also happened with Dead Space 2 IIRC. Looks like EA just can't learn from it's mistakes.
EDIT: finally, since Origins was in development for close to 5 years, I strongly doubt they took the 'oppressed elves'' thing from The Witcher, especially since the universe was pretty much unknown in the West before the games arrived.
EDIT 2 : My bad, the community had a bit of a knee-jerk reaction, there is no SecuRom DRM on DA2, only some harmless leftover files that don't do anything but are named SecuRom for some reason. Also, Aveline's personnal quest in Act 2 is pure comedy for me as I have a friend who acts exactly like her.
