The first 10-14 hours (depending on what you do) are not the best (still good) but once you pass the first 'Chapter' (end of chapter bit is great) it gets really good. Some story aspects are lacking sure, but the gameplay, exploration and characters are all good. It's no Origins but it's really good.

Little advice, the fetch quests, the picking up the skull things and the Astroniums or whatever they are called don't do them, it's bad to say as they are part of the game but ignoring them, to me, made the game better. The rest of the game of exploring the landscape, finding new hidden things and cool goals like freeing a Fort, fighting dragons or The Fallow Mire (which is basically a linear path to a boss) are great things.

Sorry you didn't find it good though. If you went in expecting a Skyrim-esque world then yeah you would be disappointed, DA games are not like that. They are more like FF12.

I'm on my 4th playthrough.

Bioware was ambitious creating a semi-openworld game, but they lack the experience of being specialists at it. However aren't most open world games very empty, unless they are open world but actually very small. Rule of thumb, if an open world game has fast travel it means it has large areas that are pretty boring with nothing to do.

The game itself feels like a middle episode. It's drawn the first 2 games together and is setting things up for future events. Ultimately the story is sending us towards a conclusion where blights are permanently ended. Inquisition gave us some important insight into that, and into ancient history, but it hasn't actually put us on that path.

It would have indeed improvement with a better fast travel system. Unlike Skyrim, the game has a character driven story with cutscenes. The side quests were poorly written and didn't offer any sense of progression. The expansive sections were empty because the majority of the side quests felt unnecessary in a story driven game. Basically, the player buys a Dragon Age game expecting good story and gameplay, but he/she can get lost for hours finishing missions with ultimately no goal or sense of purpose. 

I actually enjoyed it and I think it's one of the best games last year, but it made me self aware and bored at times that I can only offer negative criticism      

Bio ware was making the game cross gen because EA wanted their money back. If it was next gen the game would've been open world for sure. 

Ooh, another guy who didn't like a game, decided to tell the entire world that he felt the game was to boring for him... Congratulations!

I think that is very good but... is really boring indeed. And that´s a problem that I can´t stand with a game no matter how good everything else is.

Funny that so many people says that the game is only boring the first... 8 - 15 hours? A film have only 15 minutes to hold you attention or lose it. This game needs 10 hours? There´s something very wrong about it then.

People aren't saying it's boring for the first 8-15 hours, they are saying it gets a lot better after. I really enjoyed the first chapter, the main story mission (either choice) is really interesting and has a good story but what people mean is that you have to level correctly and explore a bit and with limited areas to do so people may think it becomes stale. But then many explore a lot of Hinterlands and never venture forth anywhere else. Once the first chapter is done, you get like another 6 areas on top of the 4 you had.

I liked the dragon age games for the most part. 2 felt like a cheap incomplete expansion. To each their own.

yea its boring didnt finish it. got mage lv 18 where all good spells were unlocked. but character build is too limited so i got bored. And couldnt force my self to continue. I hate the map design, too many obstacles so i have to go allways around and waste time on walking.

I think I need time to step away and likely start from the beginning again down the road. Maybe watch someone play, because if this is what the game is then to me it is the worst aspects of an RPG.