I finally finished the last, greatest spreadsheet cRPG -- NWN2. My final verdict is "meh." It ticks all the boxes, riffs off the Planescape setting, works pretty well, is epic in scope and so on, but I somehow get the feeling that there's no *passion* gone into it. Many of the battles (especially the endgame) were ultra-tedious slogs, the characters were clichéd (Ammon Jerro was the only one that broke the mold even a little), and even the romance was sort of half-heartedly done. The UI was really bad in many ways -- sometimes it felt that most of the game was about inventory management ("I know I had a bleepin' Bel Juril tucked away somewhere!") and stepping on world map transitions to reshuffle the party.
Way too much phat lewt. You know something ain't right when you've just slain an ancient red dragon and are going through his hoard and find nothing of use to your party.
Way too big a party. Having lots of characters to choose from is good, since it permits many different build and combat strategies, but having them hanging around doing nothing except when they're foisted on you becomes a chore. It would have been much better to have only a small window to recruit them, and have them walk off if they're doing nothing but sitting in the inn drinking ale.
Most choices illusionary, and no choices provided where they really count. For example, I would never have forgiven Ammon Jerro for what he did: I would have hanged him or thrown him into the dungeon to rot for his crimes, never mind how "vital" he is. The game didn't let me. If the consequence for this decision would have been to make the King of Shadows unbeatable, then so be it: going out in a blaze of glory for standing by your principles would have been totally narratively satisfying.
But it was still engrossing enough. I will probably buy the Mask of the Betrayer; the Rashemen setting sounds interesting, and it also sounds that they've addressed at least some of the problems in the OC -- less combat slogs, more story-driven, smaller party with people that actually do walk off.