I see, I've been summoned again.
The story is better than the first game's story, and so are the characters.
The plot is "smaller", and it serves the game excellently, allowing it to look at the minute elements of Thedas' society that were hinted at but glossed over in Origins. The struggle between the Circle and the Chantry, the struggle between the government and the Qunari, all much more interesting topics than the "SAVE MIDDLE-EARTH" drone of the first game. Even better thanks to the high degree of moral ambiguity that permeates the story.
A lot of the choices in the game are never clearly stated to be good or evil, and you have to take the consequences of those actions. There's nothing like a karma meter, and none of the sides can decisively be said to be in the right at any time. There are no 'good' sides, there are only good people, and even they may ask you to do evil things. This is something I like.
In many ways, I feel like they've broken out of their old style of writing and borrowed a few notes from their BFFs at Obsidian. This is also something I like.
We get to experience much more of the character's subplots than in Origins as well. Example: Leliana and Merill. Most of you will see the similarity immediately (they both have accents with which we're unfamiliar and are cute), but where Leliana's past is mostly revealed in conversations (DLC doesn't count), you actually get to be a part of Merill's story. As a result, Merill's plot is so much more moving when things go off course.
I understand the criticism of not being able to speak to your characters whenever you want, but conversations show up much more often than they did in Origins, and it isn't anywhere near as boneheaded as Awakening, so I'm fine with it.
[sub]I'll concede, at last, that Origins was better due to less dungeon recycling. However, I still like DA2 more, for the reasons mentioned above.[/sub]