Without a doubt dragon age Inquisition is a technical marvel. We are presented an extremely detailed and engaging open world to explore that is remarkable in every manner. Combat is good, graphics and sound and voice acting is good, the cast of characters is great, I really have nothing to complain about with most aspects of the game. Truthfully, from a technical standpoint, this RPG offers gamers just about everything they could want, and gamers that are rating it extremely low are not being fair.
That being said, Dragon Age Inquisition gets an essential thing wrong, and in a very big way. The main plot, on it's own, while not one for the ages, is certainly good enough. However, the main story, when juxtaposed to the rest of the game, (which is essentially 80 hours of gathering power and reputation and gold, all of which, in the end, means very little) seems too short and too unsatisfying.
In my playthrough, before the final mission, our inquisition still had 350+ power available and I had more gold then I knew what to do with. (To put that in context, the missions that took the the most power to launch cost 40 power) Thinking of a game like Mass Effect 3, where your war assets and readiness rating had a direct effect on the ending of the game, I only assumed that things would be similar in DAI. As such, I dutifully completed all the side quests, including many of the more difficult and time consuming ones, and explored every location to the fullest, claiming every landmark for the inquisition. While I do admit that many of these side quests were quite fun, the fact that I ended the game with over 350 power points left on the table, none of which seemed to be of any use, left me feeling a little bit betrayed. Did I just spend 80 hours doing side quests for...nothing? I guess the answer would be yes.
So in the end, I feel that the "less is more" approach should have been taken with this game. Many of Bioware's gems have always left me with a feeling of wanting more, and a feeling of "wow I can't believe this is over". Usually I actually feel saddened at the fact that such an epic game (ie Mass Effect 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Dragon Age Origins) has ended, but with Dragon Age Inquisition I actually felt relieved. I put so much time into this game and did not get the return I was expecting. I think this game would have been better if a few locations were taken off the map, and replaced by, dare I say, more linear and focused main campaign quests (a la Dragon Age Origins) and if this had the effect of also bringing a completionist play-through of the game closer to 70 hours instead of 110, then I feel gamers would have been much better served.
In a way Bioware is a victim of it's own success, and I am certainly not saying that you shouldn't get this game, but that you should realize, before spending over a hundred hours on it like I did, that the payoff isn't really worth it.
Overall 8.5/10
Pros:
Great cast of characters
Detailed open world,
Big loot, big monsters, big combat moments, lots of fun
Interesting story that blends high fantasy with undertones of the 12th century catholic church
Cons:
Too long
Power and gold means very little
Short main story that feels small and insignificant juxtaposed to the 80 hours of filler quests/exploration