Rating: 
Summary: Tedious
Review: After experiencing and enjoying the Baldur's Gate 2 series, I wanted more, so I tried the Icewind Dale series. I enjoyed Icewind Dale : Heart of Winter, but I found Icewind Dale II extremely disappointing.
As previous posters have said, the battles are extremely tough, but not only one battle, every battle in the game is very difficult. This affected the games continuity. For me I found the game increasingly frustrating, as the plot and enjoyment of the game was overtaken by the my Cleric having to sleep and reuse his Resurrection spells over and over again. The focus of the game quickly turns into a game of survival than an adventure game of exploration and mystery.
The lack of plot and linearity of the game was also disappointing. There is little strategy involved. After the enjoyment of the game had gone, I just wanted to finish the game for the sake of completion.
The game is also repetitive and and unoriginal. All the battles are similar, and after a while the game gets boring. Many of the dungeon levels are copied from Icewind Dale 1, and the Severed Hand in IW2 is no different from IW1.
Baldur's Gate 2 has a plot is by far the best and most intriguing RPG ever. Icewind Dale 2 by contrast is just a tiresome flop.
Rating: 
Summary: Incredible finish to the series!
Review: Incredible game! RPG's are my life so I know what im talking about... Although i despise games that are finite (games that end) this game is incredible. Although the best RPG ever is the baulders gate series. Namely shadows of Amn.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult, but well worth it
Review: Icewind Dale 2 is a computer RPG, and the last one to use the Infinity Engine popularized by the Baldur's Gate series. Icewind Dale 2 is a much more linear game, which is often for the best. There's no wandering around for 4 hours trying to figure out what you should do next. The combat system should be familiar to anyone who's played Baldur's Gate or Knights of the Old Republic on XBox. It's basically turn-based real-time. The 3rd edition D&D rules it uses allow for a lot of customization for your party, and it's never too overwhelming. The plot is a little weak, but well-written, and the puzzles and battles are challenging but not impossible. This is probably one of the best RPG's available today.
Rating: 
Summary: One heck of a game
Review: Okay, I looked at this game for quite a while (over the period of several weeks) trying to decide whether to buy it or not. Finally, I needed something new to play (waiting for NWN:HotU to come out) and caved in. Why not?I enjoyed the freedom to totally and completely create my characters. From selecting genders and races to deciding on stats to balance my class choices (keeping in mind the multi-classing that I was going to be doing), the creation process took me about 45 minutes. I was finally ready to begin. And boy, is this game hard!!! All the enemies seemed to target my extremely low hit point druid (even though he was in the back), so I had to revive him a few times (financially a burden). Then, at the higher chapters, everyone, even my whoop-butt barbarian, was dying. Had to reload quite often to change my strategy. The only real problem I had with this game (difficulty issues aside) was that your spellcasters affect both your own party members and the bad guys with their spells. So, a fireball blasts not only the frost salamander, but the three fighters up there meleeing with it. Bummer. No wonder the barbarian kept dying! Watch out for the bugs. See the official website for a listing; they can be pretty nasty, especially when you haven't saved for a while and the game crashes to the desktop (only happened once for me). Advice: SAVE OFTEN. I recommend this game to anyone with the time to play it. Be warned, it will eat up your free time (not to mention your sleep time--it's how late? And I'm not done yet?). Buy it and have fun!
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