I decided to revisit Dragon Age.
It's pretty good. The most surprising thing to me is the depth of character building and party combat. As an example:
Currently playing through with a dual wield Berserker/Reaver. Planning to make Morrigan a blood mage that casts from Warden's massive HP pool (pushing his DMG even higher), effectively turning all surrounding enemies into fuel for spells through the Devour talent (Reaver can replenish HP from corpses). Decided to keep him as Sword/dagger rather than sword/sword, as the slower attack speed wasn't worth the higher damage seen while using abilities. Has lowest possible attack speed (.7 for sword/dagger), as well as +13 damage per hit (using dual striking, this bonus applies to both strikes, making it more like +26) and this is before factoring in damage from Reaver sustainables, runes, etc. ,but has very low stamina as running all the sustainables that make this possible is taxing. Gets around this through use of the Deathblow ability (Recover stamina upon killing enemy). To top it all off he has a great stun that seems to work on everything.
I could go on. Tuning party members to compliment build choices, selecting the ones best suited for upcoming combat encounters using meta knowledge, tweaking party tactics so combats proceed smoothly. And that niggling thought that you could have further optimized the build or the party, somehow.
I'm having fun. It's a Bioware game all the way to the bone, but it doesn't disgust me as much as I remember. Companions can all be killed or told to move along whenever you like, the main quest lines all offer you a chance to flesh out (or larp) your character, and each playthrough manages to feel different thanks to all the C&C + Origin story. I don't care much for C&C, bad meme imo, but it's done well here. They just keep throwing it at you until it sticks, and suddenly you're larping as you're very own Warden. (I think my definition of larping is turning down good loot + exp for feels/ending slides).
It's not original or innovative, not even really that complex, but I think it is far more good than bad. My gripes are relatively minor (Level scaled loot is an abomination, notice board quests are bad filler, and it's all very bland. cities are lifeless, probably should have been left out). The DLC areas are probably the best designed parts of the game. Short dungeon crawls with an interesting premise, full of good loot, a few major fights, and a satisfying dose of c&c at the end to wrap it all up. Had they designed more of the rest of the game this way I think it would be remembered more favorably. Too much 'meh' content makes the game feel awfully bland at times, but not enough to say it's bad.