Dragon Age has great design, but two glaring flaws for an RPG.
About a year ago it was announced that Dragon Age would be released for consoles as well. Now I am not even going to say that it had any affect on the final product. By that time, the game for PC was basically done and ready to be released, in fact they delayed the release until late last year to port it over (and it shows the console versions are inferior).
So the problem is not that it was developed for consoles. The problem I believe is that from the outset, Bioware designed this game to be "more stream-lined." What does that mean? Well apparently to Bioware it means making a ruleset that is so lite on races, classes, abilities, skills, feats, spells, magical items, potions, etc., that repetition invariably sets in quickly. It also makes replay value entirely dependent on the story.
Bioware clearly set their main goal as attracting a new generation of gamers. It was at the end of the day a business decision. No one can blame them for that. But what does it say about what Bioware thinks of todays young skulls full of mush, that they decided to make a game like Dragon Age. Do they think they have short attention spans? Do they have a lust for blood? Will they only follow along a storyline that is so utterly generic and cliched that it would make a Conan The Barbarian comic book seem like deep reading.
The game itself is highly polished and the engine (despite a random memory leak) is well optimized for this type of game. The voice acting is excellent as is the animation and art direction. The interface is slick and and easy to use. The camera settimgs are simple and it makes combat decision making a snap. Few would argue that DA is not put together well, it's design is superb!
The problem arises in two areas. As mentioned previously is the ruleset. This is an utterly boring world with few races and classes. The bestiary that you will face while different in appearance can all be fought in the same way with the same strategy. You may have to use a few more potions, or you may have alter your tactics a bit, but you will use the same skills and abilites for each foe you face. And those skills and abilities are paper thin. Now keep in mind that this is a long game by today's standards (60-80 hours depending on how many sidequests you do). So the feeling of repitition sets in early at about 30 or 35 hours into the game. From that point, the story is main driving force for finishing the game.
The second problem is the story. Now again, if you are 15 year old kid and this is your first serious RPG, you may be thinking that it's great. But if you happen to have the unfortunate circumstance of having played numerous RPGs over the past 10 years (or longer in my case), than you'll find it completely predictable and cliche. There is huge sense of deja vu throughout the whole game. It is very uninspired. There are so many moments and characters in the campaign that have been lifted from other popular fantasy movies, books or from previous Bioware games.
I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade, I realize that many love this game. But I think it can be said now definitively, that the Bioware that made those classic games in the late 90's and early 00's is gone and will never be coming back. Bioware seems to be happy with their decision, they are swimming in money. But I can't be brainwashed into thinking Dragon Age is an RPG for the ages.