I deliberately waited buying and playing this until all the publicized ***tflinging ended, so I could have an objective opinion (and also to buy it on discount in case it does turn out to be too bad to play).
On the upside, not near as bad as it was made out to be. But is it good? Eeeh... kinda... yes and no...
I'm giving it a positive rating, because it's not outright unplayable bad, but ultimately, as a Dragon Age game, even as a fantasy RPG, it underperforms in a major MAJOR area.
The writing... oh god the writing is just... weak. I'm not even necessarily saying this game needed a better written story (though I can see room for improvement), but it definitely needed someone who can write dialogue. Most of the dialogue is bland at best, outright awful at it's worst. The previous games were big on witty/funny banter between characters, that's completely gone here. I cannot recall a single time where I was actually amused by my companions' chatting during gameplay. (Also, I have to give props to the voice actor of the Rowan character. I've never heard any voice actor in AAA games convey their feelings of boredom so well through their tone and get away with it.)
The gameplay is okay, but combat at some points just feels like you're playing guitar hero and can't get the timing right. Most big fights are basically "run in circles, pause to shoot off special abilities, continue running in circles, get a few hits in, continue running in circles". Level design is mediocre. Visuals are okay, though, character designs are meh... feels like they couldn't decide if they want cartoon characters or realistic, and we're stuck in limbo between the two, with odd body proportions, and generally ugly character models. The inventory/barter/stat system is overcomplicated and overly limited at the same time if you can believe that. There's a lot of different stats, but only a limited number of weapons for each character, so when you find a weapon that really works, there's no point in looking for another even better one, you're basically stuck doing upgrades.
That all being said, it is an OK game. 6/10, or 4/10 when comparing to previous DA games.
