Escapist Dragon Age II Review, Is Something Wrong Here?

[The Cheezy One]

A well written argument, I only have one issue - you keep talking about how certain things build the likelihood of the reviewer being 'bought out', and then state that you don't believe he has been.
Overall, I think it is more down to a less than water-tight review, rather than anything bad going on in the background.

I liked the demo...

 

[icame]

You keep citing metacritic user reviews, but you know I could put 5-10 of those up an hour if I wanted to, right?

Sure, and you would put up 5-10 out of over 1000

It's not all trolls, the denial has to stop, when's the last time Game Informer has given an 83 to a major Bioware RPG? It's not a coincidence that it's scoring badly, it's not a paradox, the universe is not imploding, it's just not very good.

Okay there are a little over 1500 ratings at Metacritic

But still, if you had taken any kind of class that taught what makes up a proper sample to determine information, you would know that a little over 1500 is not a good sample to determine stats from a few hundred thousand people or more. A reasonable sample would be in the 25,000 range at least.

I haven't seen one complaint about the game that can be placed in the fact column, which from what I have seen of the user reviews on Metacritic and some of the comments on here, people are acting like their opinions are fact.

On top of that way too many of the poor raters are giving the game a 0 or 1. Those are scores that reflect a game that is totally unplayable and not even by opinion standards. The only time a game should get that low a score is if the game had total game breaking glitches where one would have to start from the very beginning of the game to try again and then it breaks again. So under that I'm going to count all 0's and 1's as trolls, even 2's are under speculation. Heck, most of that weren't even going by the standards you put in your opening post criticizing Greg Tito. Most of them are just throwing out obscenities saying, this was bleep, that was bleep, or the even less creative just plain the whole game was bleep. Did they give any reasonable explanation of why whatever part or the whole was bleep, no.

What I wonder is have you played the game yourself, because all I saw in your first post was the criticism of Greg Tito, but nothing to back it up but the low user review scores and a couple other reviews.

Be really, never in my life have I ever trusted a review, especially not the fanaticism of people on the internet. If I did I wouldn't have the awesome game collection I have today that I enjoy. If I had, I wouldn't have pre-ordered Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, I would have missed out on one of the best gaming experiences I have had in years.

Now I and all my friends pre-ordered DA2 to get the Signature Edition. From what I have played of the game and from what I have seen of my friends playing of it(spent the night at a friends house, we all brought our TV's into the living area and played, three people playing it at the same time), everyone of use was laughing and having fun. The game gets a 10 out of 10, and my friends would agree with me. Now I didn't play it the whole night, I like space out my playing and switch off and games going back an forth, but the two friends that were there that day and night, played around 3 hours straight, stopped to eat, and played for another 8 hours straight. I stayed the night and when I got up the one friend whose house it was, was already up and playing more, I stayed for another 3 hours while he played. His words were, "This is amazing, I can't put it down."

Now my 10 out of 10 opinion is based off of several things.

Dialogue: This is the biggest improvement. It isn't exactly like the Mass Effect dialog wheel but it is similar, and that is a very good thing. It is easy to tell where the dialog might go with what I choose. Instead of sitting for 2 or 3 minutes or more making choices on what to pick in the dialog like I did with DA:O, I can quickly pick the choice I know I want and the dialog can move fast and the game can stay at a nice steady pace. It relatively removes the "make a choice and then go back to an old save syndrome" like I did with DA:O because I didn't like how the conversation came out.

My friends and I laughed our asses off at the joking remarks that have been put in as the neutral choice in the dialog that gives a more entertaining choice if you don't want to be good or evil.

And on the random side things that party members say, the Cheers joke that Varric makes in the bar is one of my favorite things so far. I love it when creators throw shout outs that usually only the older crowd would understand.

Graphics: The game is no Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in this department but it is definitely not as one 0 voting trolls on Metacritic put it, "The graphics look to be from 2003" From what I looked up the games I use to play back then, the graphics of DA2 are 500% better. Back then in games of 2003, I could barely make out what faces looked like, there was absolutely no smooth curves to the graphics, very straight lines and pointy edges. To get smoothness and expressions in games, it had to be cartoon-like, usually cell-shaded, like Legend of Zelda Windwaker. Some would point out Ocarina of Time, but even that was cartoon-like in my eyes compared to today's standards.

But still, people from what I can tell didn't complain about DA:O in this department, but then people complain about DA2's graphics, when they are an improvement. I really can't count that as an opinion, because I have seen looks and movements of the face and eyes that I never saw in DA:O. The facial movements are more fluid.

Combat and Leveling: Combat is faster paced and just more fun because of it. Special abilities recharge much faster in DA2 than before. My guy can actually run in this game instead of what I would call a "sort of fast walking" in DA:O. A movement to get around and behind an enemy or get out of range of an enemy in DA:O use to take 10 to 15, sometimes more seconds, and other times it couldn't be done at all. In DA2, it can be don in 5 seconds, sometimes less. I'm glad that they didn't put in an auto attack mechanism, and if they ever update it in, I will turn it off. I want to be in control.

The decision making on how to choose stat placement when leveling is easier because the descriptions are a little clearer than last time about what stat effect what. I love the tech trees that give a wider variety to chose from than in DA:O. I also don't mind that they changed the stat for lock picking for rogues to cunning instead of dexterity.

Characters: I finding that many of the DA2 characters have just as much depth if not more than the one from DA:O. I definitely like few of the characters more when compared to characters from DA:O. Just compare Isabella from DA2 to what she was like in DA:O, that would even bring us back to the graphics debate and show the graphics are definitely quite close to first rate in DA2. Varric is hilarious and all around likable.

That is all I have to say for now, I believe it is enough. Dragon Age 2 is a great game in my opinion. Though there will probably be people trying to refute my opinions with their opinions, but it won't mean anything.

Someone agree's with me!

 

[Daniel Laeben-Rosen]

Ok, the bitching has to stop.
A review is always subjective. It's not objective journalism, it's opinion-based. "I hated the game, so might you" or in the case of the review here: "I loved this game, so might you.". That's all there is to it.
From what I've played of Dragon Age 2 so far, I like it alot.
I prefer the telling of a more personal story over having a completely blank-slate character blundering through the world to save it.
While Dragon Age: Origins was a very good game on Pc, I honestly did not like it as much as I could have.
For one, it was way too hard for me at some points and I found the stop-and-go combat to get really old after a while. Just the Deep Roads alone were a slog.
Story was good but overall it was far from a perfect game.

Dragon Age 2... Well, to me it's so far been an improvement. Faster combat, a more engaging main character and as many fun side-characters as the first game.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Snip

You say every shortcoming is an opinion. Can you list every shortcoming you've heard of?

1.)The characters are bland and uninteresting.
2.)The graphics are horrible and look like they are from last gen.
3.)They screwed up the dialogue, and the dialogue is bland and uninteresting.
4.)Being limited to a human main character ruins the game.(Which ignores the fact that BioWare did it because it was the perspective they wanted to tell the story from.)
5.)The combat is worse compared to the first game.
6.)They screwed up the leveling of stats, abilities and upgrades.
7.)They ruined the equipment points of party members.
8.)When BioWare dialed down the difficulty of the game compared to DA:Origins, it messed up the game.

There are probably more, but that is what I can remember from what I have read in the past two days. All of those "shortcomings" are opinions and not fact.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

*Snip*

Spoiler: Yes, oh my god

Someone agree's with me!

I'm glad that someone agrees with me as well. It is all so simple, though I had to almost write a report to get it all across. I saved you some work.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

People are blind on both sides. What can you do?

Only to the fact that what each side is saying is opinion. But yeah, what can we do? There are just too many people that believe that their opinions are fact and the law of the land.

EDIT: That was meant for a different thread -_-"

EDIT: Indeed. It's funny how each sides argues their opinion as fact.

Guess what: no, the game is not good. Nor is it bad. It's all subjective! You're as wrong as each other

I can't say I have ever accidentally put in a comment in a thread when the comment was actually meant for another thread. Interesting.

Not exactly, I stayed objective by saying that the game was great was my opinion. I didn't state it as fact. So in that respect I am right.

 

[Zetsubou-Sama]

The review for DA:2 was shallow and bland, but most reviews here at the Escapist are like that, rarely do you see a review that leaves you with a general opinion on the overrall game both good and bad.

Add to that the fact that the Escapist, members and staff alike are biased towards Bioware and you get the sub-par review of DA:2

 

[Eisenfaust]

So your ideal game would be overarching plot, with odd jobs that vary in their relatedness to the main plot?

So for example, a main plot that threatens invasion by a host of darkspawn. Subplots which address
i) Betrayal of a king in a battle vs. the darkspawn host
ii) Rescuing dwarven merchants and defeating bandits on the road.
iii) Aiding one or other party of thieves within a city, culminating in a war between thieves guilds?
iv) Tracking down a nightmarish creature that has been steadily wiping out adventurers by setting careful trails for them, then ambushing them in ways that make them disappear.

Which would surely be objectively better, by the standard you set forth, than a game where the overarching plot is near-nonexistant?

and again, while doing all of these quests, there's the constantly overhead "THE DARKSPAWN!!! AARRGGHH!!". i'm not saying that the overarching story can't have intricacies, which a lot of those are (intracacies here being branches off the main plot, not individual subplots, i'm not saying DA:O's subplot content was lacking), but they're still (mostly) working towards a common goal (apart from the short, snacky ones ie: bandits on the road). my point was not to say that that was what DA:O lacked, but that a slightly less obvious overarching plot isn't necessarily a bad thing... in DA2 it fits with the character at the very least (and how many grand, fantastical, SUPER OBVIOUS overarching plots can you have within the same period in the same square 200km of the same world? what, you excepted us to trip at fall over another blight?) beyond that, the extended time of the game (a few years given all three acts, if i remember correctly (i haven't actually finished it yet, so i can't be completely sure), as opposed to DA:O's few months) serves to make your decisions have an effect on the world just as they did in DA:O, except in a different way... essentially one has a more compressed, albeit grander overarching plot, the other has a more expanded, less obvious overarching plot...

might also mean that the game is more maleable to the player... DA:O you have to defeat the darkspawn, and you will find it difficult to go 5 minutes without forgetting it, whereas DA2 lets you get as involved in the main plot as you want... you can simply lose yourself in the game (well at least, i have)

again, a middle ground will be great... a grander, slightly more obvious overarching plot that isn't so readily apparent as to prevent players from getting lost within gameplay (figuratively lost, mind you)

again, i'm not saying that DA:O was bad... i loved it, and Awakenings
i just happen to love DA2 as well... maybe in a slightly different way, but no less...

 

[Antari]

I'm really not concerned with weather Greg was bought off or not by Bioware. I know my experience with the game has been entirely different than his. If he took money to give them a stellar review, than he knows what he did wrong. If he just absolutely loves the game so much to be blinded to its obvious short comings, then so be it, it does happen. We'll agree to disagree. No need in jumping down his throat for it.

If anything I feel sorry for Greg if he feels this is the best game ever made, which is what a 100/100 score says to me. It could be signs of extreme deprevation from good gaming, which can happen.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

1.)The characters are bland and uninteresting.
2.)The graphics are horrible and look like they are from last gen.
3.)They screwed up the dialogue, and the dialogue is bland and uninteresting.
4.)Being limited to a human main character ruins the game.(Which ignores the fact that BioWare did it because it was the perspective they wanted to tell the story from.)
5.)The combat is worse compared to the first game.
6.)They screwed up the leveling of stats, abilities and upgrades.
7.)They ruined the equipment points of party members.
8.)When BioWare dialed down the difficulty of the game compared to DA:Origins, it messed up the game.

There are probably more, but that is what I can remember from what I have read in the past two days. All of those "shortcomings" are opinions and not fact.

1. Some of them are. Can you honestly say all characters are on par with those from Origins?

2. I've never heard the claim that the graphics are last gen but let's be honest here, it's not the prettiest game on the market. It's on par with Origins.

3. The dialogue has been screwed up. The dialogue wheel allows for no option when it comes to talking appart from "funny, evil, good" which frankly does not fit the tone of the game. Dragon Age Origins's system gave you the option to be more than just good, evil or sarcastic. It allowed you to shape your character but at the same time, the devs had to put more work into the dialogue itself.

4. I understand that they wanted to tell the story of Hawke but they did a great job telling the story of the Grey Warden in the first game no matter if he was a Dwarf, Elf or Human. I'd even go as far to say the voiceless protagonist of the first game is more fleshed out and is in fact the better character because of the dialogue system present in the game. It allowed you to shape your character to more than just evil or good. Dragon Age 2 does not have that. This game is more of a spin off than anything else and I see no reason why it should be branded as a sequel to the first Dragon Age. Besides, this is Dragon Age 2. They should have continued the story of the first game not change the entire focus of the game to a single character. This game is a spin off, not a sequel but for some reason Bioware branded it as such. Can anyone think of a rea$on?

I could say much more here and continue ranting but I'll stop.

5. It's definetly simpler and less tactical and this has nothing to do with opinion. It was obviously centered around the action rather than on the tactical side. Play Dragon Age: Origins then play 2. There's a huge difference between the combat in the first game and the one in the second.

6. Someone claimed that? Who?

7. What equipment points? Are you talking about not being able to change your party members gear? I agree that it was a stupid move. Why shouldn't I be able to customize my party members? In fact, why is there barely any armor in the game?


8. I did breeze through the game in 14 hours and I can't imagine side quests adding any more to this so I guess the difficulty had an effect on length. Either way, I'm currently replaying Origins so if difficulty had something to do with length, I'll find out.

Some of these points might be opinions but that does not discredit them from being legitimate points for criticizing the game. Opinions can also contain truth rather than just personal thoughts on a certain subject.

 

[CoL0sS]

I'll reserve any comments I might have about this game until I actually play it and will instead concentrate on you people. Honestly, what were you expecting? A complex old school masterpiece likes of which haven' been seen since Planescape Torment? Bioware came clean on most of the game aspects from the start. They claimed game was gonna be a bit easier, combat faster and flashier, dialogues more like Mass Effect, and they delivered all that. And yet game didn't get this much hate until it was actually released (although people did complain but were quickly dismissed as trolls by optimists). Now it's too late to ***** about anything (not that bashing the game earlier would make any difference with devs being arrogant, pretentious pricks they are). RPGs have been systematically dumbed down to appeal to wider audiences. That's just the way things are. It's been going on for few years now with no signs of stopping despite all the rage and flame wars. Blame is being cast everywhere; PC gamers are "elitists", PS3/360 owners are "console tards", and people that actually enjoyed the game are fanboys or on EAs payroll. All this reminds me of Doom 3, where people expected something that would break the boundaries of awesomeness and instead they got good old Doom, only with flashier graphics. Sorry dudes, you both into the hype...

I took most of the user reviews with huge amount of salt since they were rushed responses, released on the same day game launched, from people who played the game for the few hours. That's not the way RPGs are supposed to be reviewed (well except FF games ). I seriously doubt game deserves such low scores (meaning anywhere from 1-5/10) just because reviewer didn't like changes that were made.

I'm given to understand that 5/5 stars doesn't imply perfect game cause of limitations of that scoring system. And since when is 83/100 a poor score? Also the hell cares about graphics in story driven RPGs ? If I can distinguish my character from a nearby rock that good enough for me

 

[Hiphophippo]

I'm not all that concerned with what reviews say about a game. I loved the first one so I bought this one.

I was not disappointed. I think it's better.

Stop caring about reviews so much.

 

[Seneschal]

The game has a lot of those details that might make it very endearing to certain people. If everything works out right, it's possible feel strongly for the story (and by extension, the game's quality). I personally thought the story was a bit disjointed, but very intriguing. Essentially, it seems like one of those games that might make you love them.

I'm glad it happened to Mr. Tito, and he did address most other issues. The OP is nitpicking because his gripes aren't emphasized in the way he would want to. It's not his review anyway.

 

[DustyDrB]

No other professional review has thus far given the game above a 94, but the Escapist gave it 100.

That's not a problem with the Escapist, that's a problem with Metacritic's scoring system.

Anyone with half a brain knows a 5-Star review does not mean something is considered perfect, it simply means the reviewer thought it was in the top tier of releases and they highly recommend it.

The fact that Metacritic change that 5 (which numerically could mean anything from 80-100) and change it to a flat '100' - that is the problem here.

On the front of the DA2 box it says: PC GAMER Editors Choice 94%. Pretty sure that has nothing to do with metacritic.

What are you trying to say with that? I don't see the connection with PC Gamer and scores and Escapist scores. The Escapist goes on a 5 star system. Metacritic standardizes all critical reviews into a 100 point system. When they do that for Escapist reviews, it means a single star is worth 20 points. So had Greg Tito decided the game was a 4 star game, Metacritic would have interpreted it as an 80. It's a flaw with how Metacritic interprets scores.

The Escapist has official content explaining their scores [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/7149-What-Our-Review-Scores-Mean]. They explicitly say this for five stars:

"This is as good as gaming currently gets, the crème de la crème. This doesn't imply perfection, merely that the experience you'll have will be exceptionally enjoyable."

You can take issue with a game being as good as it gets, but that's an opinion and isn't something you can be wrong or right about. That a perfect score doesn't mean a perfect game is the key, though.

 

[Danpascooch]

You keep citing metacritic user reviews, but you know I could put 5-10 of those up an hour if I wanted to, right?

Sure, and you would put up 5-10 out of over 1000

It's not all trolls, the denial has to stop, when's the last time Game Informer has given an 83 to a major Bioware RPG? It's not a coincidence that it's scoring badly, it's not a paradox, the universe is not imploding, it's just not very good.

I am well into the second act and this game has already proven itself to be much better than Origins, in terms of combat, interface and just general streamlining.

Orders you do make with the improved radial menu are immediate, rather than annoyingly waiting for your next strike or a spell animation to play, further quickening the pace of the action.

Greg is actually correct on this matter, the time between combat animations and movements was terrible, while in DA2 it is much more fast-paced.

Now I understand this is a matter of opinion, but nobody was shy about talking about numerous major problems in Dragon Age II, nobody. It's Metacritic user score is about a 4, and it's been long enough since release and many hundreds of reviews have been made that render the "too small a sample size" argument invalid

The combat, story, quests, interface and graphics of DA2 are great. However, what most likely pissed of the Metacritic user was the fact that the butt-loads of menus and clunky interface is gone in favor of a more stream-lined process, which is a departure from Bioware's old RPGs. The hardcore CRPG fans will be pissed off at this evolution naturally. DA2 story is much better than Origins. The "Shepherding Wolves" quest alone is a thousand times better than anything in Origins. I wont spoil too much, but be prepared for culture shock and a bitter-sweet ending.

Also, the graphics look nice until you zoom completely in and observe the pixels, which is what i gather from Greg's review. I myself am not playing using hi-res textures and full anti-aliasing and stuff.

I played Sheparding Wolves just yesterday, it was a great sidequest, but don't pretend your opinion on this game means that the popular opinion on Metacritic must be unfounded. The lack of a Meta-story (I've had no main story progress beyond "raising money for an expedition" for 10 hours now) lack of carpal tunnel fixing auto attack, lack of armor for companions, the fact that numerous enemies can actually stun lock me with standard attacks, the shamelessly reused environments (not just borrowing skins, I've literally been to one cave three times with the only difference being a locked door was open (it was the very cave from Sheparding Wolves in fact) these are just a few of a long list of complaints.

Nerd rage peaked on Mass Effect 2 and it still received glowing user and critic review scores, this is not nerd rage, or a coincidence, or trolling.

 

[Danpascooch]

You keep citing metacritic user reviews, but you know I could put 5-10 of those up an hour if I wanted to, right?

Sure, and you would put up 5-10 out of over 1000

It's not all trolls, the denial has to stop, when's the last time Game Informer has given an 83 to a major Bioware RPG? It's not a coincidence that it's scoring badly, it's not a paradox, the universe is not imploding, it's just not very good.

Okay there are a little over 1500 ratings at Metacritic

But still, if you had taken any kind of class that taught what makes up a proper sample to determine information, you would know that a little over 1500 is not a good sample to determine stats from a few hundred thousand people or more. A reasonable sample would be in the 25,000 range at least.

I haven't seen one complaint about the game that can be placed in the fact column, which from what I have seen of the user reviews on Metacritic and some of the comments on here, people are acting like their opinions are fact.

On top of that way too many of the poor raters are giving the game a 0 or 1. Those are scores that reflect a game that is totally unplayable and not even by opinion standards. The only time a game should get that low a score is if the game had total game breaking glitches where one would have to start from the very beginning of the game to try again and then it breaks again. So under that I'm going to count all 0's and 1's as trolls, even 2's are under speculation. Heck, most of that weren't even going by the standards you put in your opening post criticizing Greg Tito. Most of them are just throwing out obscenities saying, this was bleep, that was bleep, or the even less creative just plain the whole game was bleep. Did they give any reasonable explanation of why whatever part or the whole was bleep, no.

What I wonder is have you played the game yourself, because all I saw in your first post was the criticism of Greg Tito, but nothing to back it up but the low user review scores and a couple other reviews.

Be really, never in my life have I ever trusted a review, especially not the fanaticism of people on the internet. If I did I wouldn't have the awesome game collection I have today that I enjoy. If I had, I wouldn't have pre-ordered Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, I would have missed out on one of the best gaming experiences I have had in years.

Now I and all my friends pre-ordered DA2 to get the Signature Edition. From what I have played of the game and from what I have seen of my friends playing of it(spent the night at a friends house, we all brought our TV's into the living area and played, three people playing it at the same time), everyone of use was laughing and having fun. The game gets a 10 out of 10, and my friends would agree with me. Now I didn't play it the whole night, I like space out my playing and switch off and games going back an forth, but the two friends that were there that day and night, played around 3 hours straight, stopped to eat, and played for another 8 hours straight. I stayed the night and when I got up the one friend whose house it was, was already up and playing more, I stayed for another 3 hours while he played. His words were, "This is amazing, I can't put it down."

Now my 10 out of 10 opinion is based off of several things.

Dialogue: This is the biggest improvement. It isn't exactly like the Mass Effect dialog wheel but it is similar, and that is a very good thing. It is easy to tell where the dialog might go with what I choose. Instead of sitting for 2 or 3 minutes or more making choices on what to pick in the dialog like I did with DA:O, I can quickly pick the choice I know I want and the dialog can move fast and the game can stay at a nice steady pace. It relatively removes the "make a choice and then go back to an old save syndrome" like I did with DA:O because I didn't like how the conversation came out.

My friends and I laughed our asses off at the joking remarks that have been put in as the neutral choice in the dialog that gives a more entertaining choice if you don't want to be good or evil.

And on the random side things that party members say, the Cheers joke that Varric makes in the bar is one of my favorite things so far. I love it when creators throw shout outs that usually only the older crowd would understand.

Graphics: The game is no Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in this department but it is definitely not as one 0 voting trolls on Metacritic put it, "The graphics look to be from 2003" From what I looked up the games I use to play back then, the graphics of DA2 are 500% better. Back then in games of 2003, I could barely make out what faces looked like, there was absolutely no smooth curves to the graphics, very straight lines and pointy edges. To get smoothness and expressions in games, it had to be cartoon-like, usually cell-shaded, like Legend of Zelda Windwaker. Some would point out Ocarina of Time, but even that was cartoon-like in my eyes compared to today's standards.

But still, people from what I can tell didn't complain about DA:O in this department, but then people complain about DA2's graphics, when they are an improvement. I really can't count that as an opinion, because I have seen looks and movements of the face and eyes that I never saw in DA:O. The facial movements are more fluid.

Combat and Leveling: Combat is faster paced and just more fun because of it. Special abilities recharge much faster in DA2 than before. My guy can actually run in this game instead of what I would call a "sort of fast walking" in DA:O. A movement to get around and behind an enemy or get out of range of an enemy in DA:O use to take 10 to 15, sometimes more seconds, and other times it couldn't be done at all. In DA2, it can be don in 5 seconds, sometimes less. I'm glad that they didn't put in an auto attack mechanism, and if they ever update it in, I will turn it off. I want to be in control.

The decision making on how to choose stat placement when leveling is easier because the descriptions are a little clearer than last time about what stat effect what. I love the tech trees that give a wider variety to chose from than in DA:O. I also don't mind that they changed the stat for lock picking for rogues to cunning instead of dexterity.

Characters: I finding that many of the DA2 characters have just as much depth if not more than the one from DA:O. I definitely like few of the characters more when compared to characters from DA:O. Just compare Isabella from DA2 to what she was like in DA:O, that would even bring us back to the graphics debate and show the graphics are definitely quite close to first rate in DA2. Varric is hilarious and all around likable.

That is all I have to say for now, I believe it is enough. Dragon Age 2 is a great game in my opinion. Though there will probably be people trying to refute my opinions with their opinions, but it won't mean anything.

Metacritic is often treated as a pass fail system (0, 1, 9 or 10), and while that is a disadvantage, every game has to deal with that same disadvantage so it's fair to compare them because they are dealing with the same rule set, Mass Effect 1 and 2 and Origins got high scores working with the same system and ruleset as DA2, so it's the game, not the system. Do I think it really deserves a 4? No, probably a 6.5, but the point is something is wrong with the game.

I've actually taken college level statistics, and to ensure a 5% margin of error with a 99% level of confidence among a population of up to 100,000,000 people (which is far more than bought this game) you only need a sample size of 666 people, as the error margin decreases exponentially as the sample size increases, a 95% confidence level is accepted in a court of law, so a 99% confidence level should be WAY more than enough to justify an opinion on a forum.

I am only addressing these parts of your post because the rest was your personal opinions on the game, which while interesting, I'm in a bit of a hurry and your opinion is not really relevant to the validity of its online score

If this post sounded rude that was not my intention.