Morrowind is of course a towering giant of a game. It’s sequel, Oblivion, received some of the same criticisms that NWN2 received and while they have improved on Oblivion to some degree I think NWN2 really covered the most ground from it’s initial release to its current state.
Thus I don’t know if I would put NWN2 in the current tradition of a “dumbed down” current game. I think it’s pretty good if you take into account the expansion and the, especially after Mask of the Betrayer (an outstanding sequel) and SOZ (which adds Ultima style overland map).
Granted some portion of the NWN1 community stayed behind and continue to do the hate thing against NWN2 (mostly because the new toolset is harder to use than the old one). But the user made mods that come out now are pretty good … more than good, ground breaking. (Try Subtleties of Thay) and if you haven’t kept up with the state of the NWN2 art your missing out.
My own concerns are the future of the D&D world in general as WotSC is pretty much doing a re-write on the D&D world and may be dumbing down the fundamentals of the game themselves with the 4th edition rules. But that’s another matter.
Well, I think I’ve now psyched myself up to trying this huge mod out.