I think I'm somewhere near the end of Awakening. In the lair of the Mother.
I've been bored by it, to be frank. It plays like what it is: taking a player that has finished their story arc and extending their story out of nothing more than wish-fulfillment not to let them go. But by the nature of the way games are balanced, it has made the game utterly broken. Your team is just way, way too strong for anything it faces.
In order to justify the admission price, they've had to give you better weapons, better armour, more spells, more skills. But this is loaded onto characters that were already at game-ending levels of effectiveness. Characters that were capable to killing a freakin' archdemon whilst simultaneously taking on an army.
The result is overkill and the death of game balance. In Origins, it was common to die at the beginning, not uncommon to die in the middle and distinctly possible to die at the end. In Awakening, it's been all but impossible to die. The battle is generally ended before it begins.
My character generally just has to go charging into the middle of everything (no chance of losing anything more than 5% health with all the OTT buffs that arcane warrior gives you), hit hand of winter for serious damage to everything close by, freezing that which doesn't die, and wait a few seconds for the rest of the team to finish it off. Even when an armoured ogre grabs my character, it does almost no damage. There's no fear factor in any fight.
The rest of the team are just as lethal. Oghran, for example, generally one-shot kills everything up to serious bosses with his runed-up Chasind Great Maul. Etc etc.
And then there is the story itself. You've just defeated an entire army pretty much single-handed. But now some petty noble thinks he can beat you in a fair fight? Why? I walk into a room and you can't even see me because I am so swirling with buffs. I'm carrying some epic weapon and clad in magical armour. Why the fuck would anything mess with me? And yet here I am sorting out petty arguments and doing fucking fetch-quests for merchants. Ugh! It's too much of a story reset.
So eventually, you get to the saving of Amaranthine. But since I previously saved Denerim, even this feels like an anti-climax. And then onto the Lair of the Mother. Defended by a dragon. That my team killed in about 30 seconds flat without even needing to use potions, because they are just that overpowered. Talk about killing the memory of the difficult dragon fight of Origins.
And don't get me started on the bugs. Just as well that Awakening gives me new overpowered armour and weapons, given that a bug resulted in me losing my (DLC paid for!) equipment from Origins.
Origins was flawed but clever, well-balanced and had a good story. Awakening is just flawed and buggy. Origins, I would give 7/10. Awakening barely makes a 4/10.
And I have been well and truly put off bothering with Dragon Age II.
I have arcane warrior but am waiting on getting my willpower to 40+ to compensate the mana drain due to fatigue. Not sure whether to eventually equip the star metal long sword or the Yusaris the dragon slayer 
