[galraen]

Weird, I'm one of the most critical people on here of BG2, if not the most, but to rate Arcanum (which I loved) above it makes me wonder about the people who would say that. Each to their own of course, but in RPG terms BG2 is definitely the better game. Not the best I've ever played by any stretch, because it does have its flaws, and some of them can be killers if you're impatient. I can only assume that the people on the other site who trash the game never managed to get beyond it's blemishes.

I'd say give both of them a try if you can, but if it's a straight choice, BG22 every time, if only because there is so much third party content available for it as opposed to virtually nothing for Arcanum apart from patches. The result being that apart from being a far bigger game in vanilla form, it has far more replayability.