I don't think DAO was great but I think the plagiarism accusations it gets aren't good criticism.
Plagiarism in fantasy is inevitable because all the basic tropes were already established centuries ago and every since author since early modern times has aped what someone else already made. The difference between inspiration and plagiarism is putting your own spin on it.
Dragon Age rips ideas from Game of Thrones, Twitcher and Warhammer but it uses said ideas better than any of those three things. It manages political intrigue without every noble being cartoonishly evil like GoT, it's unfortunately liberal but never preachy about it like Twitcher and it's dark but not retardark like Warhammer.
Yeah, nope.
At that point in time, there was only Twitcher 1 out, and it, being the best in the series, was far from preachy and liberal. Must I remind you that it was the collect-sex-cards-for-banging-chicks game?
Warhammer Fantasy is not retardark. Mayhap some wargame material suggests that, but definitely not the Role Play sourcebooks and campaigns. Neither is 40K for that matter, but this is not the right discussion for that. DAOs problem is, it lifted specific relationship between emotions, the otherworldly realm of swirling possibilities, daemons, magic and mages almost word for word from Warhammer. This is something more than using the same basic trope.
You might have a point with GoT. Never cared much about it, so can't compare and contrast the two satisfactorily. I'll tell you this tho: individually, Tywin Lannister >>> Loghain.