I was expecting after over 10 years they'd at least develop an open world worth exploring. Instead we get "4 times bigger!" Since when was bigger indicative of quality or being worth my time?
This is a particularly dim-witted criticism, since the original Dragon's Dogma is
not truly an Open World game; the development team might initially have desired to create an Open World RPG, inspired by the Elder Scrolls series, but they quickly had to confront budget limitations which necessitated slashing the planned size of the overworld to one-third what it had been. The main quest and a handful of major sidequests are sufficient to take the player to every meaningful location, and there's little difference between playthroughs in what parts of the overworld are experienced by the player. Expanding the size of the overworld in the sequel to four times as much as the original's overworld means that the development team should have sufficient land area for an actual Open World design, which could fundamentally set the sequel apart from the original, and would also enhance replayability.