I finished Gothic 1 and started up Gothic 2 figuring that I'd get the same kind of experience that Gothic 1 gave me.
I was wrong; Gothic 2 is much harder.
I've won the game now, but a few things still stick in my mind, in retrospect; Gothic 1 and 2 are both dangerous to wander around in, but Gothic 2 gives you a larger area to explore AND more monsters in that area AND more dangerous monsters in general AND tends to give your character a much slower development rate because of all the dangerous monsters that you have to avoid all the time AND makes it harder for you to get the best equipment because you need to plan a specific path out from the vary beginning of the game if you want to use the more powerful weapons, like the Berserker Axe AND depends on you exploring the world thoroughly in spite of your fragility in order to gain power.
If you could read that run-on sentence, you will understand why I'm not keen on ever getting Gothic 3. I can only imagine what Gothic 2 would be like for people with no prior Gothic experience...

Are you playing with Night of the Raven installed (which is the default)? Night of the Raven makes a vast amount of improvements to Gothic II but it also makes the game significantly harder even for veterans. Vanilla Gothic II is roughly comparable in difficulty to the first game.

Well, in Gothic 3 you are a superman from the very beginning, wooping orc asses in a moment. And in the end you become something unfairly goddamn strong no matter what you do.
As for Gothic 2, the game's not as difficult as you've described it. The night of raven makes it significantly harder, but not hardcore even for a rookie. If you're playing for the first time you won't get as tough as you could, but it's not necessary at all to beat the game.

Depends on whether or not you have Night Of The Raven installed. Vanilla Gothic 2 is actually easier - at least that's what I think.
You have much clearer instructions in the start, and a lot more versatility to do what you like.

Hmmm... Three out of three posters agree that Night of the Raven makes the game harder. And here's me, never having played Vanilla Gothic II. Well, that's one mystery solved, at least.

Yes, Night of the Raven makes Gothic II significantly harder. Among other things, there are more monsters, they are harder, higher level monsters tend to be found more often in lower zones, and the availability of helpful stuff like potions is greatly reduced.
Ironically, these changed were introduced with the expansion because many players felt vanilla Gothic II was too easy.
So I guess that makes it 4/4.

yea... night of the raven is semi-kicking my ass. I'm in chapter 4 (dragon hunting) and trying to get through the swarms of orcs, wargs, and lizard men is painful. I'm a merc and can take on any of those one on one without getting hurt, but in groups of 2-3 they are HARD. A lot of patience and manuevering is required even with my mastery of single-handed weapons, a sword that does 110 damage (single-handed), and light dragon armor. I can see though, if I was a mage, how much easier this would be. Ice wave is ludicrously overpowered, when I have it as a scroll I wade through enemies like butter.