Well the meta was 79 on the most reviewed version which was the 360 and I think low- mid 70's would have been a more fair reflection. Reusing assets, little customisation and poor combat mechanics (lets just keep flinging mobs of enemies at the player) as well as the game being downright broken on nightmare in terms of balancing.  As good as some of the characters, side missions and story was It was quite obviously rushed and deserved the abuse it got.

Not really.  Dragon Age Origins had an action style gameplay and a strategy style gameplay, but only on PC. 

The action style you controlled one character, hit the command button or one of your equipped abilities, and your character would run towards and attack the enemy you have locked on(or from a distance as a mage.)   Your other characters will do their commands depeding on the tactics you've set up for them(basically FF12 gambit system but for Dragon Age.) 

The strategy gameplay allowed you to play the game in an overhead view and you had complete control over all the characters.  You could tell characters to move in specific positions, whether to hold, what skills to use, etc.  It's basically like Baldur's Gate.  Or if you haven't played that, how you control your characters in Warcraft/Starcraft/Age of Empires/etc. 

Dragon Age 2 removed the overhead strategy system.  You could still tell your allies who to attack or whether you want a character to stop moving.  No option to tell them where you want them to move.  Also, while the first Dragon Age was like playing a strategy RPG, attacks coming out at slow timed intervals, Dragon Age 2 felt a bit more like an action game with your attacks coming out in quick succession.

I haven't played the game, but from the videos I've seen, it looks like Dragon Age Inquisition's action gameplay seems like a mix between the first game and the second game.  The attacks seem to have a lot of weight to them and you can attack at will.  The weight in the attacks seems to keep it as an RPG while still giving the player full control over what they're doing, so it can be played as an action game but will still feel like playing an RPG rather than an action g ame.  The game also has the strategy view from the first game.

Dragon Age Inquisition also has a multiplayer element where you and three others play quests that last from 20-30 minutes going through three different dungeons in the game randomized with different enemy groups, traps, and treasure locations.  It's completely separate from the single player so nothing you do in either one will effect the other.  The multiplayer allows for you to play completely in the action style gameplay and any strategy will be done in real time between you and the other three players.  Might have a rogue who throws caltrops as the enemies advance, while a fighter class taunts the melee enemies to attack him, a mage who casts a protect spell on the fighter or party, and an archer, the mage, and the rogue all pick off the weaker long range enemies in the back while melee units are focusing on the fighter. 

We'll have to agree to disagree on the egregiousness of some of those sins. The combat mechanics itself I thought were great. The waves of enemies dropping from no where not so great, but that's not combat mechanics IMO, but combat design. I thought Balancing on Nightmare was generally OK, but my skills aren't top notch so perhaps some parts were too easy for the true hardcore player. I managed to platinum the game, but I must confess to chosing not to duel the Arashok on nightmare to make that fight a tad easier. Though the group fight was no walk over.

Noooooo...I thought the game was impossible in nightmare with my Mage build. The first act is fine up until the ridiculous boss battle at the end of it and it just gets progressively worse from there. Generally it isn't too bad but there are certain insane spikes in difficulty on nightmare which make it seemingly impossible and tedious which were usually boss battles or certain mobs thrown repeatedly at you with rogues within their ranks. Not only was combat design bad but the combat mechanics too were quite poor. First you have non-stop mobs randomly jumping over walls so everything is basically crowd control which wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't disappearing rogues who vanish and randomly appear behind your character and on nightmare would 1-2 hit kill you. The combat mechanics behind rogues are just a complete disaster on harder difficulties, I had to micro manage my party, positioning them with their back to walls just to stand a chance at times which is just ridiculous.

I wonder if it's too late for this game to be qualified as 2014 GOTY. It does really seem like it would be a surprise win.

I'm downloading the 'free' six-hour demo now. Paid for a month of ea access so that's crap value in $/hr compared to the main game. Maybe it will let me save and import more than one character and inquisition party? Doubtful. Warning: You can delete the auto-renew on xbox.com or use a code if you don't want to get billed again.

I'm sure this will get some goty nods. Best rpg 2014 on most sites is a given. I really don't care much at this point.

I'm trying to remember what class I went with on Nightmare. I think I went mage because I remember having a shit of a time in the boss battle at the end of Act 1. Until I put the whole crew on hitting the boss demon thingy while it was down and I went around taking on the minions that spawned at range. But then I might have been an archer rogue. Anyway it was one of those two classes, which makes you very squishy to the high damage bosses. 

@ Mr_No the game definitely qualifies for 2014 GOTY awards. Wouldn't they close off GOTY contenders at the beginning of December? Blood mage is quite a fun specialisation to play.

8% In about 20 effing minutes. Gaaahh! I may not be alone on this one. Traffic or not, that's bloody awful.

It let me play for about 2 hrs then went black. Still says I have 4 hrs but won't let me do anything. Didn't even give a last cutscene just kill boss, ach pop and they chopped it off like a guillotine coming down. What a rip.

Haven't played a Dragon Age game but the combat looks fluid and it's in third person. I would've liked Skyrim a lot more if the third person controls weren't so clunky..then again the game was meant to be first person but it just wasn't for me. Also, the political choices and army building concepts reminds me a lot of Suikoden except it seems to be a lot more in-depth than Suikoden was. Basically, I'm excited for this game and will be getting it Day 1 and I haven't really said that for any other games that have released this year.