I liked the basic premise of Dragon Age 2 a whole lot. Rising to be a local notable over several IG years was a refreshing change from the tired old "save the world" trope. Although I did miss the freedom to pick your origin that the first game gave you, I didn't mind the dialogue system change too much; having a voiced main character was neat. I also thought the companions were, on a whole, very well done (Varric and Merril in particular).
I did not like the constant dungeon map recycling. I did not like the proliferation of utterly uninteresting randomly-generated equipment drops (that constantly needed to be upgraded because of the utterly nonsensical and contrived concept of equipment tiers, bleh). I detested much of the artistic changes, especially regarding armor and weapons (they actually looked usable in Dragon Age 1, they most certainly did not in the sequel). I hated the loss of the option to equip your companions freely. I really did not like the loss of tactical combat: the wave spawns of enemies, the way in which your characters would somersault tens of meters in a split second (the less skipping, jumping and martial arts silliness in my Western-medieval-themed RPGs, the better), and especially the loss of the tactical overhead view.
So it was a mixed bag of fruits. Overall a disappointment, given that my expectations were high to begin with.