User blog comment:Markurion/Extended Cut or Prolonged torture?/@comment-1900300-20120407084044/@comment-1388547-20120409013355

I like DA2 fairly well. It was actually my entry point to the series -- I bought DA:O because I liked the sequel. Of the two, I prefer the gameplay in DA2 and the story in DA:O; my reaction to the story of DA2 was mostly indifferent, but it was clear there was a fascinating game world buried somewhere in there.

That's the real difference between DA2 and ME3 for me: while DA2 could have been better-written, it didn't leave anything hanging that was critically important to me, and the ending didn't come out of nowhere -- the third act as a whole felt a bit tacked-on, but within that 10-hour-plus section of the game, things unfolded in a fairly comprehensible fashion. The only real shocker was Anders' actions, and you got the chance to deal with that before the final battle. ME3, by contrast, had a really major swerve with the Catalyst Kid, and left a lot of important plot threads hanging at the end. I feel that DA2 represented mediocre but consistent writing, while ME3 represented better writing that got finished off by somebody who was either incompetent to write a proper ending, or too willing to buckle to pressure from on high to chop the ending short.