"Divinity 2's dialogue options are much better than Divinity 1 - you can make a paragon of virtue, or a giggling psychopath, and you can express that in almost every conversation. Divinity 1 didn't give you that much freedom, you generally were stuck in white knight mode if you wanted to actually do quests."
You could be a giggling psychopath in DD as well, but there were actually consequences. Shopkeepers would raise prices or stop trading. People would get angry and stop speaking to you, or even become hostile and attack. Guards would come try to subdue you if you stole or hurt someone. Word could spread about your bad reputation, making people more or less predisposed to be open and kind to you.
You lose all of this in Divinity 2. Sure, you could say whatever you wanted, but no one cared, it made no difference. Better dialogues my butt.
The consequences of the dialogue are not the same as the quality or quantity of the dialogue itself.
The realistic consequences of the DD dialogue are more about how immersive and complete the game world seems, and Divine Divinity already has the edge on that.
There weren't as many "evil" options in Divinity 1 - for most of the quests, there was only one solution with a reward - the good path. In Divinity 2 there are multiple mutually exclusive and equally rewarding solutions to a lot of quests.
