Amalur is a hack'n'slash. It will lift you up with its gameplay and let you down with its universe, or lack thereof.
For an epic story that will intrigue and move you?
For deep characters that will stay with you long after you've put down the game?
Look elsewhere.
Try Amalur only if you like the hack'n'slash experience (or don't know yet whether you do).
Go in expecting epic combat, fine-tuned controls, great customization, awesome loot and a whole gameplay experience meticulously crafted to promote fun and prevent frustration.
You'll find that crouching (= sneaking) changes everything, especially the ability of walls to see you stealing stuff and your ability to hurt non-hostile targets.
You'll breeze along indefinitely at top speed regardless of how much weight you carry around.
You'll meet countless clones (with lots of hairstyle and makeup variations, but clones nonetheless) that will give you countless quests, most often with such broken accents and boring lines that the best feature of the dialog system is the ever-present skip button.
You'll soon discover that people frown upon your opening most chests in cities, but destroying crates is the national sport.
On the very few instances where you will care about a character or story, you'll cringe at the lack of options provided to you (apparently, your avatar does not care), if only in the information gathering department.
But despite all those shortcomings and their countless brethren, you will enjoy your time in Amalur, because it is an exceptionally well-crafted and fun hack'n'slash. Just don't be fooled by its RPG appearance or the name Salvatore that is linked to this game... it's a hack'n'slash, really. The story doesn't matter, the universe doesn't matter, the characters don't matter. All those things are just fodder for the gameplay.
The only real flaw of Amalur, IMHO, is its whole premise about fate. The game will tell your avatar time and again that he/she is free of the burden of fate and that he/she can un-weave and re-weave fate's threads at will... That sounds great, but the game is extremely linear. There are very few choices to be taken and they matter very little anyway (though I must say it's very refreshing to see those choices not framed into good vs. evil).
The worst is being told so many times that you can change the fates of others, only to find that when an NPC is "fated" (as per the game's script) to die, there is nothing you can do. The game won't even let you try... It wouldn't be so aggravating (most characters are worth very little care, after all) if the game did not insist on putting you in the shoes of a fate changer...
Bottom-line is:
Amalur is an awesome hack'n'slash. Nothing less, nothing more.
If you play it for the gameplay, you're in for a great time.
Forget about the rest. There is nothing else here.