BG:EE2 did not suffer quite as many teething problems as BG:EE did and it was quite a good game right after release. The game is still scheduled to get regular patches and improves the game in almost every conceivable aspect. As other reviews mention, it's basically a modded copy of BG2, so why would you pay money for it when you already have a regular BG2 copy? Well, it does offer some new content, classes, items, restorations and a boatload of fixes, but most importantly it's a single installer that offers all of that in one package, has ongoing support and multiple language packs included. No need to spend hours gathering mods and installing them, and best of all it is still mod compatible, so if you miss a mod from the original BG2, there's probably an up to date copy that will work with BG:EE2 as well. As with BG:EE I honestly didn't care for the new characters and their content but by all reports they seem to be fully fledged characters on par with some of the better modded characters. If you don't care for them, they can largely just be ignored, but they do provide some extra content. If BG:EE2 is worth it or not depends almost entirely on perferrence. In my opinion it's the best way to enjoy a classic RPG without hassle and modding, while having ongoing patch support.
I got this on release via BeamDog and absolutely hated it, it was beyond broken and seemed to add more bugs than it fixed. The text was blurry and borderline unreadable, the new characters were so-so and it was delayed for over a month just a week before the scheduled release. Needless to say a lot of the people that pre-ordered were not happy campers. But that's all in the past, the resolution appears to be working normally now, a lot of the bugs have been fixed and the game is still getting patches (Aug 29 was the latest). It has multiple languages built directly into the client and the one translation I did play was well done. It adds several new items, new classes, and best of all doesn't generally force new content onto you if you want the original BG experience. Unfortunately the new characters do have a tendency to butt their way into the game which I am not very excited about since you don't get a choice on the matter and they appear in major game zones. No spoilers but you will get dragged into a fight or two against your will even if you try your hardest not to get involved. I really do not care about the new NPCs, but after the initial encounters they can be ignored. My only other complaint is the lack of original sounds, however they can be modded back into the game. Speaking of mods, some mods will work with BG:EE some will not, unless you have a heavily modified version of the original BG, you can probably get most of the mod content to work on BG:EE as well. So why 5/5? Because if you're a fan of the series and want to get back into it without spending a few hours gathering mods and installing them, this is the best way to do it. If you've never played the game before and want to give it a shot, this is by far the lest painful way to do so.
Every single review seems to tout this as the next Fallout, and it really isn't. The game still has major bugs, many of which have been reported by people like myself since beta/alpha. It's amazing that they just recently acknowledged the movement bug where enemies teleport across the map, or walk seemingly infinite distances on the first turn of combat. Speaking of combat it somehow manages to be worse in many aspects than games which are now over 10 years old. You cannot target specific body parts, critical hits provide nothing beyond extra damage, and the weapon jam rates are just frustrating and stupidly arbitrary. How does a cylinder revolver jam more often than a full auto machine gun? Combat balance also leaves a lot to be desired, enemies that have infinite grenades/RPGs are common and by no means interesting to fight, especially since enemies in general seem to be subject to none of the rules that you are subject to, having infinite ammo, explosives, and being fully focused on combat skills. Even if the combat isn't great it's still a good RPG right? Well, that depends. Character stats are lackluster and there's very little interaction between stats and skills, or stats and the world in general. Why does a character with a Charisma stat of 1 get the same Barter price discount as a character with 10 Charisma and the equivalent skill level? Who knows, but apparently this is a game with deep RPG elements. I also hope you enjoy disarming traps and opening containers only to get trolled by the 1 junk item inside after you spend half of a characters skill points to be able to open it in the first place. And there are a LOT of containers, why are people trapping boxes with dynamite in the middle of their own homes? Poor design choices all in all, and these are not things patching will fix as they are ingrained in the games core mechanics. I won't talk about the writing and story as that's subjective but outcomes are largely the same no matter what you do.
