As a longtime Dragon Age fan, it pains me to say this - but the game just isn't very good. The story is flat, companions are uninteresting and it's very hard to root for anything in this game in general.

To say some positive things first, the combat system, albeit very simple and linear, is actually quite fun. The game looks really nice graphically (even though it looks nothing like how Dragon Age should look in my opinion) and the performance of the game is outstanding and a lot better than other triple A games that have come out in recent years. No crashes, no major bugs, all in all a very polished game.

The biggest failure of Bioware in this, however, is the absolutely horrible writing. It feels like no dialogue goes into depth, all conversations are superficial and feel like they were written by an angsty teenager. The dialogue wheel is an absolute joke and could have just as well been left out entirely. In this Dragon Age, you don't call the shots. You are told at every turn how you should feel and how your character should react to events. It really does not matter at all which of the options you pick at any given moment. You could roll the dice on every answer and it wouldn't change the end result significantly or at all. The game tries really hard to be taken seriously, but fails this task across the board.

Had the game been developed by a new and upcoming developer studio, it wouldn't be a bad game. But once you measure it against the depth of the Dragon Age franchise, and especially the expected standards of a Bioware game, everything just crumbles.

If you are not really invested into Dragon Age as a whole, I would say buy it and have fun with it. But if you're a longtime fan of Dragon Age and after all this time were expecting a game as good and as captivating as Origins, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

As a longtime Dragon Age fan, it pains me to say this - but the game just isn't very good. The story is flat, companions are uninteresting and it's very hard to root for anything in this game in general. To say some positive things first, the combat system, albeit very simple and linear, is actually quite fun. The game looks really nice graphically (even though it looks nothing like how Dragon Age should look in my opinion) and the performance of the game is outstanding and a lot better than other triple A games that have come out in recent years. No crashes, no major bugs, all in all a very polished game. The biggest failure of Bioware in this, however, is the absolutely horrible writing. It feels like no dialogue goes into depth, all conversations are superficial and feel like they were written by an angsty teenager. The dialogue wheel is an absolute joke and could have just as well been left out entirely. In this Dragon Age, you don't call the shots. You are told at every turn how you should feel and how your character should react to events. It really does not matter at all which of the options you pick at any given moment. You could roll the dice on every answer and it wouldn't change the end result significantly or at all. The game tries really hard to be taken seriously, but fails this task across the board. Had the game been developed by a new and upcoming developer studio, it wouldn't be a bad game. But once you measure it against the depth of the Dragon Age franchise, and especially the expected standards of a Bioware game, everything just crumbles. If you are not really invested into Dragon Age as a whole, I would say buy it and have fun with it. But if you're a longtime fan of Dragon Age and after all this time were expecting a game as good and as captivating as Origins, you're going to be sorely disappointed.