Can you compare BG2 to BG3? I don't think you can. Gaming and computers have evolved so much, its apples and oranges. Two completely different things. Like comparing a book to a movie, simply because they both have "stories"
I mean, you totally can compare those things. Apples are simpler to eat as you can just eat the skin and there are less juices, whereas you have to peel an orange.
Books are compared to movies all the time. See every single book that is made into a movie. The Hobbit book was short and sweet, whereas the Hobbit movies were needlessly drawn out into 3 installments and had unnecessary cameos and love stories. Harry Potter movies took a lot Ron's good points and gave them to Hermione, making Ron a much less sympathetic character. LOTR movies are much more compressed than the books, arguably a good thing making for a tighter and more enjoyable experience.
If we move away from direct book-to-movie adaptations, you can still compare a lot of things between them. Books are better at showing character's thought processes whereas movies have to show this through character's actions or dialogue. Intro hooks are vastly more important in books, as you'll probably still watch a movie if its first 5 minutes is meh, but a boring 1st chapter of a book can put you off from the large time investment.
It's reasonable to compare BG3 and BG2, as long as you keep the time and D&D version differences in mind. E.g., day-night cycle is totally a thing that
could be in BG3, and its lack compared to BG2 makes the world less immersive. BG3 is turn-based, meaning that it's easier to micromanage all your characters and there are less trash fights, at the cost of combat speed. Etc
