Gothic 2 +NOTR is much better than original Gothic 2. Just be forwarned, it's an extremely unforgiving game in terms of difficulty.
That's actually a thing I never understood. Why make a game even harder ?
I vaguely remember this this was done for complaining community members who actually believed the original Gothic 2 war too weak.
To me, it was like "let us make it harder to distract more casual players and please the fanbois".
I never understood that.
By the way, I'm currently playing the Yoda Stories and Tropico. I really got hooked with Tropico. I loveitloveitloveit.