(there was a cool fight in here where Atton's fighting spirit activated after he'd fallen to the pink skinned lady, and he shot her in the back for huge sneak attack damage. Was very cool.)
Been playing with TSLRCM installed as a female Jedi Consular on difficult who dumped Strength and the beginning was quite fun. Atton and female General were using modified field pistols made while escaping Peragus. Had to use force powers and positioning a lot. Usually I just make a big strength bro who kills everything and fugs handmaiden (she's so pure).
Story feels more coherent playing a female. I will miss Handmaiden, but Atris being a jilted lover fit awkwardly and moments like Atton fearing the General's judgment about his past makes more sense.
Also, Atton is always right about everything. Kreia was a Sith witch messing with everyone's head all the time and Disciple was a spy.
Atris is still a bitch. Always was.
A lot of her issues make sense if your character is male.
Atris just seemed like an unnecessary appendage to the story for me, almost another Kreia when we already have a Kreia.
I agree with notpl in that I'm of the camp that thinks Avellone is a bit overrated (though I probably don't hate him as much as notpl evidently does
) and the highfalutin' aspects of KOTOR 2 that everyone lauds are almost its weakest point, where to me the strong suit of KOTOR 2 is that the levels are pretty well designed and the story well told (up until the point it seems that they lost steam). It's actually a solid game up to that point, with the dialogue mostly being interesting enough to have a wee think about now and then. By contrast, KOTOR has a fair number of rambling sections quite early on, where you're just yomping back and forth across maps; KOTOR 2 is more action-packed.
I don't think "the Star Wars universe" ever had any problem with morally grey characters, even in Force terms. Han Solo was one, Lando Calrissian another. IIRC the EU had a fair amount of exploration of the grey Jedi, and even KOTOR had Jolee Bindu ferchrissakes.