I agree with Neb when comparing the two series. The following review summarizes my overall view of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Please note that the rest of this post may contain spoilers for Baldur's Gate I, Tales of the Sword Coast, and Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn.
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Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is an epic role-playing experience. However, it is also a rather clumsy and muddled attempt at incorporating 2nd Edition AD&D rules, and may soon become tiresome as more and more monsters of more and more power are thrust at the player.
The game is also questionably organized, with the game allowing almost limitless freedom to explore and complete nearly ever side-quest in the game, and then later becoming extremely linear. This leads to the game also being majorly unbalanced, though this is not only the case in the organization, but in the setup of various quests as well.
In terms of the plot, the game may ultimately fail to deliver any satisfaction or cleverness that was promised in the beginning. However, several of the characters are very well developed, and some are quite believable.
The game's graphics are much superior to Baldur's Gate I in a technical sense. However, in an artistic and aesthetic sense, the game suffers somewhat from its 'micro-management' appearance; the view is from a much higher resolution than in Baldur's Gate I, making character appear smaller and more diminuitive. The setting (and backgrounds in particular), though, are awe-inspiring; many areas are very memorable, and very impressive. In addition, several of the creatures and/or beings that appear in the quest are also impressive, and almost none of the more powerful AD&D monsters are a dissapointment in terms of appearance.
The sound does not disappoint either. While the first area makes use of loud, blaring and unappealing background music, the epic battles more than redeem the game with their epic battle scores.
Finally, the gameplay is as addictive and enjoyable as that in the first game; however, while it maintains the basic elements found in the first game, it is ultimately geared toward a much different audience. This presents several problems. Players who enjoyed the low-level journeys in the first game, and the sense of satisfaction in felling a towering ogre, may be disapointed by how trivial most battles in the game become. Indeed, many quests involve few challenging battles, with the exception of ridiculously powerful 'boss' battles at the very end. In this regard, depending largely upon how one chooses to play, the game will likely either lose its challenge altogether, or will be so challenging and time-consuming that the player may lose interest.
While Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn does deliver an epic role-playing experience set in the Forgotten Realms, the game struggles to do so through its questionable organization, non-plausible plot, improved -- but newly styled -- graphics, intially unappearing sounds, and unpredictible gameplay. However, it will almost certainly redeem itself in the end, and, should the expansion set Throne of Bhaal manage to conclude the saga in much the same fashion, it has a decent chance of satisfying fans of the original game.
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I agree on the matter than the Baldur's Gate series' plot was rather unoriginal. However, I must argue that Baldur's Gate I's plot was much more interesting and compelling than that of Baldur's Gate II.
This is primarily because the Child of Bhaal aspect of the series is the main source of unoriginality throughout the series. In this way, the game attempts to make a single character stand out as a protagonist, but fails to do so due to its inherent purpose of allowing one to develop his or her own character. In Baldur's Gate I, the Child of Bhaal storyline was completely secondary to unravelling that plans of the Iron Throne. This means that when the Child of Bhaal aspect is finally identified, it may come as a shock or as more of a confusing plot device than a 'plot twist'.
Other than the dreams that the character experiences after completing each Chapter (and the resulting special abilities), or the occasional cryptic references by an NPC, or various assasination attempts in the beginning of the game, the Child of Bhaal aspect does not affect the player in any way at all.
Unfortunately, it is inevitable that Shadows of Amn would focus on the Child of Bhaal storyline, thereby making it much less interesting.