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Rating: 
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Gave up on this game after way too many bugs, issues with frame rates, etc. Loved NWN1, and eagerly awaited a multiplayer experience with NWN2 which never materialized. I ran multiplayer NWN1 worlds publicly available. NWN2 development for my team ended within 2 months of release.
Don't bother with this game unless you have a supercomputer to run the graphics. I bought a new computer -just- for this game and still it struggled.
Single player storyline had some promise, and some moments, but all too often fell to the same old same old.
But the bugs especially in multiplayer are what really killed it for me.
Rating: 
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This game is the best game of its type to come along in a while and over all a good game. That being said there are some problems with it. I bought a recommended video card listed on the box and up graded my memory to recommended. I wasn't totally impressed with the operation of the game with the RECOMENDED hardware. The graphics were not as fluid as I would have expected and the daytime sky in the game did not work properly. I could not craft items because the craft alchemy work bench did not work (good thing there are cheats on line to make up for it) There have been plenty of large updates made since I bough it though it still have a few bugs, would have been nice if they had finished it before release. The story line was good over all with plenty of side quests though near the end I found some parts would have been almost imposable without getting my own items using cheats. I liked the ability to control more them one character and have a list of them to choose from that leveled up with my character. The characters from the list were picked up during the story unfortunately the only let you create the main character. Characters don't die they return with one hit point at the end of the fight making the game more enjoyable and saving you from reloading from an early point all the time. The menu layout and quick keys were not all that well thought out but once you get use to it, it's not so bad. I wasn't happy when I bought the game because of needing to up grade my system just to play at all. After making the upgrades to my "average" system I can say that it was worth it. I would have needed to upgrade my system sometime next year anyway. Though I can say if you are thinking about buying it might not hurt to wait till near 2008 or later for a better price and let Atari finish working out more bugs.
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So although certain aspects of the original game have been improved, particularly character AI and your control of members of your party, many other gameplay features have been damaged or totally removed. Weight now becomes a serious issue in inventory management, as does the small and indistinguishable icons representing items. Meanwhile the innovative radial menu from NWN has been replaced by a pixelated dropdown with confusing options, making controlling your party and interacting with objects a chore.
It also feels as though there simply isn't enough going on in the game. Your party seldom fights groups significantly bigger than it (unlike the 10 on one fights from NWN) and seems to get killed much more often than it should. Characters stop following orders the instant you look away, just like in the original, and spellcasters in particular are extremely wasteful of their abilities. Offsetting all this is a decently engaging storyline and all the hack-and-slash you can shake a mouse at, with characters who manage to display personality at a roughly B-movie level (quite a lot better than most video games!)
In the meantime, the game looks, if anything, slightly worse than the original. Sure there are more prims onscreen, but framerate is choppy and character animations make everyone look like a marionette. The game is also depressingly prone to texturing errors and flat-out crashes, especially during the excessively long load times. The requirements for even minimum-graphics settings are utterly absurd. While you wait for the textures and mysteriously vanishing NPCs to sort themselves out, you can have fun trying desperately to get the camera to include your character and the ten feet directly in front of him/her. Honestly, the camera behaves as though it is playing a totally different game, possibly Mario Kart.
In conclusion, this game has a fine storyline and interesting characters, who unfortunately are trapped in the bodies of a bunch of manakins being dragged around by strings. The AI is prone to insubordination and the graphics turn an Alienware into an Apple Classic. Don't bother with this game if you frustrate easily.
Rating: 
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I hesitated to purchase this game after reading negative reviews about, since I did not have much fun with Neverwinter Nights, which I played through once. I finally bought this game recently and started playing it in July 07. Folks spoke about patching, so I used the auto patch and this took about 15 minutes. With gamers in their reviews speaking about how the game looked and played, I was concerned about my "middle-of-the-road" e-machine ability to play it, but I bought the game at a bargin anyway (I tend not to buy games a full price at stores).
For those that really want to buy the game, but are hesitating because of the gamer reviews, I say go ahead and buy it. I don't care to place my setting on high resolution levels and the game runs fine. The complaints about camera angle control are somewhat correct, but I had similar issues with Dungeon Seige. Camera issues may be the "nature of the beast" in a 3-D environment with 360 rotation. Just relax and get accustomed to the viewing angles. The character interaction is similar to Knights of the Old Republic, which I find more interesting than the old baldur's gate series (which I enjoyed too)or the first Neverwinter Nights. There are similarities between this and the old Neverwinter Nights, but the environments and characters are better rendered, the music and voice are good, and the story interesting. And yes, the visuals don't appear as good as Doom 3 which I've played). So what? Different game! You must have XP, use a mid-range machine, get the DVD version, patch it, and enjoy.
Rating: -
The first Neverwinter Nights (NWN) games through BioWare and Atari were great in that they were available for Windows, Macs and even Linux. The graphics were not super-impressive, but worked well. Gameplay was equally good, and there was a strong multiplayer and development community to keep the gaming fresh.
Neverwinter Nights 2 (NWN2) revives much of what was available in NWN, but falls short in many technical areas. Gone are Mac and Linux users; this game runs on Windows XP (and maybe Vista) only. Further, you MUST have a high-end 3D video card to run it. As an Apple MacBook Pro owner, I wasn't going to be dissuaded, and (using Apple Boot Camp) played the game on my laptop. The system's fans go into overdrive to keep the chipsets from overheating. There is no computer on this planet that can run this game without straining its graphics system. Nevertheless, I could play the game very well and enjoy much of its rich graphic environment. Obsidian Entertaiment (the developers) need to take a page from BioWare (who also made the equal or better graphics of Jade Empire) and learn to code much more efficiently-. This game has terrible overhead.
The storyline and gameplay, overall, is immersive and enjoyable, with many sidequests. Purists of DnD may not like it, but past NWN players will like the additional prestige classes and expanded multiclassing (although they should be warned that NWN2 does not support elite classes--yet). Character dialogue works well (Jade Empire, to compare, uses a nearly identical process) and works great in a court trial in the midway of the game. Special effects and fighting are good. Multiplayer is weak as the provided toolset for user-based games and the like is very difficult to use.
Some players will be ticked off at the ending if they are a good-aligned character. Obsidian fell totally on its face in the endgame, which will appeal to no one and is a total disappointment for most (another point that many game makers need to understand). Some satisfaction may be gained for players when the expansion, "Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer", arrives. But, why does it take the purchase of two games to gain the satisfaction from one? The game has much to offer, but like your new cell phones (except perhaps an iPhone), the "cool" and "fun" factors will wear off NWN2 for many. That's too bad, as the game doesn't deserve the scorn. Atari and Obsidian just aren't great storywriters, and this needs a correction. Buy "Jade Empire" for PC before this one, but consider it if you find it for under $40.
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