Dragon Age: Should I skip Awakening and go right to DA2?

I'm late to the Dragon Age franchise, so I'm only just beating the first game. I understand that Awakening is just an expansion pack, leading me to think that it's not necessary to understand the rest of the story. Not to mention that resources lead me to believe that the game is incredibly buggy, and perhaps not even worth the twenty dollars I'd have to spend to purchase it. So would I be better off skipping straight to DA2? Or would that make me miss something important?