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There's the RPGCodex... They generally have a negative opinion on every single RPG that comes out. Some people there bash RPG's just because they can, but there's plenty of intelligent posters who give clear reasons for why such and such RPG is not a very good RPG.

The most common complaint I've seen is probably "There are no consequences for your actions." Which, for the most part in computer RPG's, is true. You can waltz into someone's home, take all their stuff, and walk away without any problems. Or you can have the option of saving the king, or not saving the king, but with both resulting in the same outcome, creating a world that never changes with what you do.

You're leaving out a quite a few titles. There are some great mods in the works as well.

The Black Hound - Originally was in production at Black Isle as Baldur's Gate 3 (though it has nothing to do with BG1 or BG2) but was canned when it was nearly complete. Josh Sawyer, the original game's Lead Designer who's now working at Obsidian, is recreating the game as a mod for NWN2.

The Planescape Trilogy - Three large campaigns for NWN2 in the Planescape setting that look promising, despite the obvious titles (from the Divine Comedy, CLEVER!). The first part, Purgatorio, is almost done.

Dragon Age - Bioware's mystary PC RPG base on original IP is, well, a mystery. All previous work and screenshots have been scrapped and the project started anew, but some hints by Dave Gaider lend some hope to this possibly turning out decent. Unlike Mass Effect.

The Broken Hourglass - An infinity engine RPG by the best infinity engine modders out there. Whether that means that they will be making a great RPG with the engine remains to be seen. Based on original, non-DnD setting and rules.

Age of Decadence - An "isometric, turn-based, single-player 3D role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world, inspired by the fall of the Roman Empire." Currently under development by an asshole. He's also a purist, though, so it may turn out respectably, if it ever turns out.

And of course...

Fallout 3 - Bethesda has it. They say it won't be "Oblivion with guns", but they lie frequently. I still have a sliver of hope, though. We'll see if it's still there when they release some concrete info/screenshots.

Lastly, The Witcher looks interesting as well. A lot of actual "Role Playing" for an Action RPG, which can only help.

I reviewed the 6 free single-player modules that developers have uploaded to the NW Vault. There are technically 8 so far, but 2 are unplayable. You can read that whole forum thread to get the in-depth reviews, but I'll give you a quick summary here.

A Dark And Stormy Knight
You begin the game on a trail. There is a door in a hillside. You enter. You battle some critters in a crypt, and get some prizes. The end.

Avendale
You come across a town, find a tavern, and recruit two NPCs to join your party. There is the standard rats-in-the-cellar quest, along with a few more difficult quests. This is probably tied for the best module so far. The quests are good, there is an evil plot to discover and defeat, etc. But it's buggy.

The Flight from Death
Good, linear, escape-from-jail story. You're falsely imprisoned, of course. There is one NPC who will join your party. The dialogues are anemic.

Shadow Keep
This one is good, because it has no pretensions. No fancy scripting, only 3 lines of dialogue for the entire module. The basic story is that you're on the road and come across a path to the Shadow Keep. You've heard stories of undead and treasure, so you go for it. It turns out there are undead, and there is treasure. That's it. The game ends when you clear the 3 or 4 levels of the keep. Still, it's real fun for trying out character builds and doing some hack & slash.

From Within - An Unknown Enemy (Prologue)
The story: you've been summoned to help some towns suffering from an unknown attack, but there's something odd about how the leaders rush you off without disclosing all the details. Poor dialogues railroad you along the plot. The scripting is ambitious, with cut-scenes and triggered events, but the developer bit off more than he could chew. So it's buggy. You'll get 1 NPC companion on this module.

Most of the modules have a length of 15 minutes to 2 hours, with the exception of Avendale. Shadow Keep & Avendale are fun, if you can accept their shortcomings. From Within will be good with more bug-fixing and enhanced dialogues. Anyway, have fun playing NWN 2, everyone.

It really isn't. Just read the only honest review on the net: The Review.

The Ship and soon-to-be DEFCON are perfect examples. Best $15 I ever spent on a game for The Ship, and $10 for an innovative game like DEFCON seems like a steal.

People who bitch about Steam suck. It's by far one of the best things to happen to the gaming industry. Just read hear for more:
Interview with Troika Games

"Why Steam... the reason Steam is so fantastic, is because the game can be developed and distributed without any publisher involvement. Laidback will get to keep the IP, which means that the idea and world the game takes place in will still be ours. Laidback can make a great title, put it up there and people can download it for less than they'd pay in the stores. On top of that, Laid Back will only need to sell a very small number of copies to recoup its cost and keep the company going.

To help everyone better understand, I will explain Publisher funding vs. Developer return process. I'm going to simplify it a lot, but this is more or less how it works.... and it's really quite amazing...

After they agree to fund your game for 6 million, you begin production. They give you 500k a month upon receiving, reviewing, and approving your milestone. They are basically checking every month to make sure the game is actually being made and going in a good direction Fair enough. To keep things easy, let's say the game ships on time and they've given you a clean 6 million bucks.

Ready?.... You get 10% of the royalties of the game! So like if the game sells 1 million units at Electronics Boutique for 50 bucks a piece, you get 5 million dollars coming back at you right?!??!

WRONG

EB bought the game for 40 dollars and sells it for 50. Now the publisher takes away their expenses of producing the full color manual and the pretty box and such which we'll say is 10 bucks (usually more like 7, but let's keep the math easy). So now we are down to 30 bucks, and you get 10% of that... 3 bucks.... but WAIT!!! Your 3 dollars doesn't go into your pocket, your 3 bucks goes to pay back the publisher what you borrowed to make the game. They did give you 6 million dollars. So before the developer see's a check in the mail, you would have to sell 2 million units!!!!! So the developer before the developer gets a check, the publisher gets 30 million dollars coming in.

Crazy huh?

So why choose Steam? I have chosen Steam because if you buy Valves engine to make your game with, you get to keep 100% of what you sell on Steam. That's right 100%. So using our math from above, if I can sell the game on Steam for 30 bucks and cost 6 million to make, I'll be seeing a check after the game sells 200k units instead of 2 million. AND the check I get for the units I sell will be 10 times more than it would be from a publisher AND after all this wonderfulness, you guys all get the game for 30 bucks instead of 50....

It's an all around winner.

If Troika was able to sell the games they made through Steam and sold only a 1/4 of the units they did, they'd be thriving today and everyone would have really cool RPG's to play. The more people who download, install, and actively use Steam the better. It's really small developers only hope to get their games out to people.

As far as the game being in a boxed version, it's possible... but I would wait until the game is close to completion before I entertained the idea of a publisher putting it on the shelf. If the game is done and there is a lot of buzz around it, then the developer holds all the cards could get a better deal out of it. Valve would also have their concerns as well and I would want to make sure the wonderful world of Steam would take TOP priority. "

I had to look this one up too ... Google is your friend: http://www.rpgcodex.com/peopledetails.php?id=41/. For those lazy to check the link, Chris Avellone also goes by the alias "MCA".

He's responsible for one of the great games rarely played ... Planescape: Torment. I did play that and have to agree it had a wonderful, intruiging storyline, and was just a great game all around. From TFA, it also had an amazing amount of dialogue too.

Troika have since had other publisher problems, first with sierra and weird demands on Arcanum, and then the one year long, or rather if you will short, development time on ToEE - a game they wanted to patch, but Atari at first did not want to pay for the patch, thus the Co8 patch for the game. When finally Atari buldged and agreed on paying for the patch, they kept it for testing for weeks, and then left it at that even if the game would really need a 2nd patch.

Besides that Troika fled Interplay back in the day, it would be kind of sad to see them fallback, even more so with the unstable ground Interplay is standing on, after all half the cash they earned recently "bringing them back from financial disaster" they owe in rent see