I think this is the main thing that, after giving it some thought, has left me with an extraordinarily bad taste in my mouth about DA2. The rest I can put up with, with the lazy environment design being #3 on the list, with the crappy, basically exactly the same ending despite your choices as #2. Really, the ending wouldn't have been that bad if it had seemed to matter at all which side I had chosen.Less mages randomly exploding into abominations. I liked how blood magic and pacts with demons were grey areas in the first game, DA 2 was a little too "rawr, mages are evil." Kind of hard to side with the mages and tell Meredith they aren't all that bad with a bunch of them slitting their wrists behind me.
Non emo Anders? I'll request it, he was my favourite character in Awakening. Perhaps if he gets his cat back he'll find his lost sense of humour.
But #1 is the Mages. They pretty much ruined them. I feel no pity for the mages anymore. No longer do I see them as the poor, innocent oppressed people, they are now the dangerous ones that can't be trusted, just about everything dealing with them was showing how right the Chantry is when they speak of them as dangers that have to be watched over.