txmn1016 wrote...
I liked DA2 but I know I'm in the minority. I think what I liked the most about it though was the characters. I felt more attached to them for some reason than I did to the DAO characters.
The DA team has the best character writers in the company. They just do wonderful, wonderful stuff.
You may be noticing a lack of refinement (the dialogue is more lively, but the polish is not as meticulous) and some stylistic differences due to having a voiced protagonist (they can say more awesome things, because you can have the protagonist actually respond to it).
On the whole, I find it makes it a lot more personal and fun to engage in, but Alistair and Leliana and Sten and Wynne and even Dog are all still incredible characters. (Shale is still the best character BioWare has ever created, though—oh, how I hope she shows up in DA3!)
txmn1016 wrote...
Didn't they drop the last DA2 DLC to focus on ME3 though?
The decision to not put any further work into DA2 had nothing to do with ME3. The team working on DA2 DLC had nothing at all to do with anything related to ME, and they don't have anything to do with future ME3 DLC.
Apparently some opportunities arose that made them decide to move the whole team over to the next thing (presumably DA3, although they haven't announced a title or focus). DA2 DLC sold very well (people like to assume it didn't, but they're wrong—the DLC was successful), and they were already hard at work on the expansion, but they ultimately felt the best choice for the franchise was to stop that work and shift everyone to the new game.
They've indicated that they hope we'll be able to better understand why the decision was made when we see what it is they're working on, but that could very well just be standard prerelease hype. We'll find out, I guess.