No DA2's problem was in a lot of things, the new aestetics (spiky hair and unrealsitic armours yay), the "darker" story (really it was just dumber), in fact gameplay was one of the few things that in many ways were better, DA:O had too many OP builds, though I did miss having options and equipment in DA2.
In many ways DA2 was like ME2 a grab for mainstream appeal for a franchise which had been great in it's niche, the diffrence is ME2 worked, DA2 didn't.
DA:O was a 3D Baldurs gate, DA2 was a fantasy mass effect 2 (and mass effect 2 was a third person shooter based sequel to a game that was a RPG).
I disagree, my main DA2 problem was endless combat in waves, to me OP builds matter little in a single player game because you've chosen to play that way. The one thing that I wish more games had at least looked at was Friendship/Rivalry, something that was hampered due to different Bioware writers with some viewing rivalry as being hostile and so viewing it as agreeing to disagree.
On topic though, is there a reason the Tyranny dev diaries are off-site of Paradox Plaza?