Awakenings was a silly joke, and unlike MoTB for NWN2, a horrible step backwards. But let's start from the beginning..
You're led by an unknown character (the first dialogue you actually have suggests that you didn't even talk with Mih.. Mit.. the female warrior) and upon arrival your castle is under attack. The incompetent soldiers upon rescue bravely flee, leaving their commander and superior to deal with this mess..
On the way we meet an out-of-place mage (you'll get many out-of-place characters here) with fancy haircut and yo' standard robe that we've seen milion times before. Next on the list is our favourite drunk berserker.. but in Awakenings he's even more childish, even tho his problems were solved by PC. Childish to the point where he ruined one of the best things about Origins : Joining ritual..
Then we fight "das boss" which is a huge disappointment both combat and story wise.. And there we have it, the old dude which should be nothing more than a sidekick of PC, but even in the rescue dialogue he takes matters in his own hands.. From here on now your new title is not Grey Warden, but Auditor of what other people have to say. You toss in one line, and then they tell you what you COULD do. But since its very alike to NWN2 the things you "CAN" do are actually a requirement.
This is where the game truly starts (and this is also 1/5th of the game done)
Now the list goes on. The main good"badguy" just wanted to talk with you.. by stealing your items and sending dragons to eat you and your compaions.
A certain elven sorceress requires you to go realy, REALY far in goody-two-shoes-beyond-limits to even consider listening her instead of wiping out on spot.. A fail replacement for Morrigan i guess. A stupid, clueless and blind one too. A stupid, clueless and blind
mage. Now i don't mind NPC's beign repulsive, and unlikely to be invited by PC to party, like Jaheira from BG. But the example that i presented (Jaheira) was annoying due to her character, not due to poor dev team.
The quests give you very limited freedom. Nwn-style. You can either help guards or smugglers in the-only-chain-side-quest-in-game. You can NOT help the smugglers to infiltrate their base, betray them and wipe them out to report to guard captain. & vice versa. Everyone sees through walls and hears like a bat. No deception.
Now the quesitons that remain.. Where is my dog? Why can you use the shortcuts only on your way back, even if these are open? How the hell do the darkspawn crawl out of the pit with three broodmothers? What an idiot would place them under a deathtrap? Why do the "inteligent" darkspawn HAVE to state that the illusions will not harm them, and that they should attack the player instead.. after standing next to the projected images for quite some time? What was the "difficult" part of the expansion anyway? Why cannot you use some spells on the bosses?
Ok, i can answer the last one. Because they balanced the spells very poorly in DA:0, and after lvl 20 you will simply get bored to tears (and some spells were poorly balanced regardless of level.), but instead of fixing the issue at core, they simply made "big guys" immune to certain spells. Joy. But then there are unkillable warrior PC's, and unkillable thief PC's.. Dishing out insane amounts of damage, immune to everything.. joy. I remember my reaction to "Fire golem fight was the hardest in game".. what fight now? Oh yeah, the one where i was watching porn at the same time, and didn't even come close to loosing any character.
In short, Awakenings has a few nice things to add to Origins, like the one and only choice that you do that actually matters (no spoilers here) but overall is a quick slot filer with very few planning and work involved in the making. Poor NPC's (although NPC to NPC banters are quite funny at times, a plus for that), NWN2-like storyline progression ("quick, you have to do this & that, no, there is no way you can avoid it. When you return aliens will attack us, and when you defeat the aliens a volcano will erupt, because aliens were keeping it intact. Once the lava goes rampage on our lands a mega-boss will be released and you have to kill it..") Overpowered items, classes and not-optimised ability progression. Toss in nice looking but very easy boss fights and some "WTF" moments (not the good type)
While DA:0, with its flaws and shortcommings is still a great game (not a 10er, or 9er, but an 8,5? Sure) Awakenings would be terrible even as a free DLC.. but its not free.
and there you go. DA : Awakening.
Edit : Reading above comments i must say that i didn't encounter a single crash. Clean your registry and optimise drivers kind Gamebanshee members!
