If you played DA:O on consoles then the problem might be much harder to spot. Playing DA:O on a computer made me see why people hated DA2 so much: DA:O was basically a RTSRPG. Positioning was important, and so were the right skills, the right setup, and the right equipment, especially on higher levels.
For everything DA2 did right (better story, better equipment variety, better ability progression, some better character development/dialogue, more focused world building) it did quite a bit wrong (wave-based combat bankrupting the gameplay, less equipment customization, some worse characterization, cut and paste dungeons, focusing on only one city). BioWare just needs to keep the good and leave the bad, but lots of companies say they will do that and very few follow through.