More than it meets the eye, an all-around experience. Here's why:
The beginning:
The game starts with you making a character. It is fully based on D&D, and the amount of customization is satisfying. Also, except for the always present human, elf, dwarf, half-orc, halfling and gnome, there are additional races that can add to depth, and the amount of classes is appealing. You will recognize the standard classes, but you will also notice an equal amount of special classes you can play later, when meeting the requirements. Unfortunately, during play of NWN2, some special classes eventually outshine others and have more usable space (for comparison, Red Dragon Disciple vs Shadowdancer).
The story and characters:
The game starts in a well/old-fashioned style - in a peaceful village during peace times, only for things to turn bad. You are tutored throughout the village play, and the very tutorial is designed quite well, it fits the atmosphere, it doesn't bore, and makes the point. As you progress through game, you will realize that the peaceful village and peaceful people are not so peaceful, thus understanding even that "carefree start" cliche was there with purpose, which leads us to the plot.
The story is immerse. It is "deep". It is thorough, detailed, carefully layered. The spine of story is a cliche, but everything around it, skeleton, flesh, skin and brain are grand original. The story is direct, completely active and all your motivations are a part of the plot, so you never forget where or what are you after, and you cannot trail off. A reason for this might be in the fact the game is linear, but what is other to expect when it story-tells you? I value plot far above freedom of movement, and it is only fair to say that the possible places to visit match the intensity story attempts to deliver, compared to Baldur's Gate 2 or Fallout 2, where you can play the particular field of map for ages, even losing the touch with story. Know that every clickable npc in game has it's role.
But the sole plot would be nothing without beautiful characters. You cannot add more pre-made characters to your team, instead, a fine amount of in-game characters join your party. Their skills and qualities vary, but there is one for each class, and each is assigned it's own personality, following from own alignment. Their races also vary. In a sense, they made classic profile characters, gave them a special touch, voice-overed them, and connected. They also have quite good motivations, and whenever you think they are "forced into story", you realize that they aren't. They went even so far as to make a particular character actually without any motivation, just here to annoy, but very useful in many conversational situations and quests. Just like in many classic great roleplaying experiences or works of art, during game you get to have your Neverwinter tavern, mystic symbol of adventuring. Every time you visit it, and in most times it is related to story itself, you can, upon exit, select which characters to have you with. Unfortunately, the party is limited. To me, that was horrible. If you're a player who really doesn't care, then it doesn't matter, however, If you are like me, you attach to characters strongly. With that in mind, I could not handle going through entire story without that feeling of company and relationships, so I used console codes to add all joined characters on each quest. Yes, you can do that, and in my opinion, it really empowers the story experience! If you ask me, they should have made it that way!
For those who look for romances, although character interaction is grand, the romance modules are not as good. In fact, they're quite disappointing. However, there's the community, which has several great and well-made romance modes. Whoever is after it, I advise them to visit other sites and look for romance mode. Hint: I wanted one for Neeshka, and it's the best out there.
As for other non-playable characters, there are many of them, and their importance stretches from local madman over local lord to supreme leaders and kings, secret operational, special forces, extraplanars, outsiders, chieftains, necromancers, darkness itself, etc. The vast versatility of characters is impressive, and ALL are connected to everybody. Also, all quests have a purpose of fulfilling the story, and the hardness, originality, creativity and sole dynamic vary in interesting tone. There are also many events that many players wanted to see or experience in many previous games, but couldn't, hint, a war, so I'd say Neverwinter is as good in it's rich content as any Shakespeare's work, in comparison.
The actions you make in the game shift your alignment, which is not so important as the fact, depending on your choices, you gain and lose influence with other characters. This does not seem relevant, but for the story, and few situations, it's crucial. You may experiment if you decide to play more than once, and I assure you it adds to the atmosphere. I, in my second play, was thrilled with outcomes.
Gameplay:
Bear in mind, although all skills are present in game, you only really need few - lock picking, item crafting, trap disable, search, parry, taunt, bluff and diplomacy. Moreover, the bad side is the almost stupid decision about party. All your characters are always in party. You can order them to stay put, and move around alone, but once you change the map (or go from outside to inside and vice-versa), they "teleport" to the beginning of the map with you. Also, whenever you make a talking contact with an npc, the game "teleports" your pre-made character to that npc in an instant, even if you're miles away. This means that you really do all the talking only with your main character, and that, unless your main character is rogue, you really can't do any sneaking, stealing, or assassination. No silent work, just pure bashing.
Except for skills, there's a huge amount of feats. Well, all of them. NWN2 fully covered all feats and weapons so you can finally have absolutely any kind of character you want, except for one thing: There's no two-bladed weapon, again. Eventually, in my second play, I had a chaotic neutral tiefling lvl 8 fighter, lvl 2 rogue, lvl 10 red dragon disciple swinging two greatswords, each in one hand. I wanted to make my band recognizable, so I made every character a dual-weapon wielder. It's crazy! A joy to watch. Anyhow, the level cap is 20. It fairly hard to reach it, specially if you play with as many characters as I did, but nonetheless you can. An epic levels, in this game, are not necessary.
The looting system isn't bad, but could be better. It takes a lot further to get into game to start getting unique and formidable accessories, weapon and armor, but once they start popping out, you have a lot to do with your characters. The powerful feature, however, is crafting your own items. It takes a lot of time and resources to make them, but they're really handy, and the whole experience is warming. My team eventually looked perversely good. If you're replaying the game, you can also have fun with console codes and adjust appearance and accessories to your liking. It is not possible for you, on second play, to have it hard-going, so you might as well enjoy in bloodbath and focus on the plot and characters. The only thing that may annoy players is that fact that on non-playable characters, you can only see armor changes on figure, and on some, not even that. It doesn't make sense, but it's the anime series/games cliche, "always the same outfit". You eventually like the fact they look they way they do, it's what makes them what they are, in some way.
The battle itself is a whole new world. You can have a puppet mode activated, where you pause the game and select each and every action by yourself, you can also have partial puppet mode, selectable for each characters, or puppet mode turned off, where characters you do not control perform by their AI, which is good. Battles are never easy, and more important battles go from hard over very hard to near-impossible. Anyway you look at it, you should enjoy battles. However, if you go step-by-step, you will more enjoy the outcomes, than the flesh of battle. If you go into it based on AI, specially if you have power-items, you can just sit and watch, an intervention here and there. Allow me to express my thrill with battles that involved over 30 participants out of whom at least 10 were spellcasters. What a show! The animations are carefully designed and full of effects, you can recognize spells immediately, and the chaos that appears during massive battles is just extremely entertaining. Bear in mind - it can eventually lag, and if you use console mode to add characters the way I did, it appears developers did not foresaw that, and your characters are responsible for massive lag, actually, their enchanted armor and weapons specially. The more of them, the worse lag is - which is solved by reducing textures.
Technicalities:
Even today, NWN2 has optimization issues. If you're patient, you'll eventually edge them out, but many can be very annoyed. Dragon Age Origins performs perfectly even on weakest engine that can run it, while NWN2 lags even on extremely powerful machines. I didn't let it spoil the plot, though.
The graphics alone, if it wasn't for the lag, are actually pretty. They aren't too aggressive, the bloom mode isn't abusing, and there's a hefty amount of details. Spells and items are done with out most care, The sounds are good, and I really, really, really enjoyed the soundtrack. I'm very sensitive to soundtracks, and so far the only soundtracks I recommended from western RPGs were Diablo 2, Morrowind, Oblivion, Temple of Elemental Evil (as small as it is) and NWN2. I guess it's up to personal opinion, but nonetheless, my belief is it's brilliant and perfectly tuned for each situation. In fact, it amplified each situation, specially twists.
Epilogue:
So, as experienced NWN2 player this is my review. My first play was, well, not as thrilling. My second play experience was simply breath-taking. Just to make a note, on my second play:
1) I updated to 1.23
2) I installed romance modes
3) I added all characters, once unlocked, into team
Oh, and the ending emotionally killed me, specially since all these beautiful characters do not appear in expansions.
Thanks for your time,
Decadent Sympozium