'Bout 12 hours in, still tackling quests in Act 1. Really enjoying it. Quests in general are a lot more fulfilling this time, and you tend to move on to the next one before any of them overstay their welcome. They're more diverse this time around as they seem to deal with different aspects of the lore and society in the city. Sure, most of them are solved in the end through combat, but that's a good thing. The combat's always been the main selling point of DA for me. This shouldn't be like Fallout where generally the Speech solutions are more satisfying than the shootery, actual gameplay bits.
When you get to the end of quests, you typically have to face some sort of boss character, and this more often than not, is where the game shines. I had to restart a few times during these sections, but they can be beat, mostly, with better squad management and tactics. This is in contrast to DAO I believe where you could steam through 90% of the fights without much regard to squad management, regardless of difficulty. Also abilities are better and have a larger impact in battles - you may find yourself rotating party members a lot more just to see how different abilities compliment each other, and with each party member having unique skill sets it encourages experimentation and rotation for higher level play (cross-class combos also factor in). The ability to respec any of your party members at will enforces this experimentation.
However, I do miss the overhead angle when casting aoe spells though, you can never get it where you want it. They also shoulda included some sort of speed slider for the combat in the options, though. Sometimes the battles are played out so fast that it's impossible to keep track of all party members at once.
I like the fact that it's not some big, cliched, epic fantasy romp - makes a change of pace from every other fantasy rpg. It sorta takes the plot of GTA games and applies it, successfully so far, I'd say, to the fantasy genre.
