Garrett is one of my fav vg characters ever, I like a lot the Nameless One and his company of tormented souls in Planescape: Torment and JC Denton in Deus Ex and I liked a lot Duke Nukem too before they ruined him.
I can like also some NPCs: despite Viktoria was a true bastard with Garrett in the first Thief, I quite liked her in the second and (warning: spoiler) I felt sad when she sacrificed her life to help Garrett attacking Karras' stronghold Soulforge. And in the first Thief, after reading a note of (again a spoiler) Constantine about his plans, I quite respected his nostalgia for the old times when darkness brought men fear but also the ability to dream unrestrainedly, and I felt almost sorry having to kill him.
In many other games that I like a lot, OTOH, I don't feel so close to their characters. The Witcher is still in my backlog, I wonder if I'll get attached to Geralt.

It really depends on which game I'm playing. If a game does a good job at developing a character and makes me feel for that character's troubles and successes, then I will become attached. Plus, I'm kind of an overemotional guy so that might be a factor as well.

You get attached to a character the moment you spend more than 15 hours with them. Pretty much good majority of RPGs. It's like getting attached to character in a TV show or movie.

I'm a fairly emotional person, so when I play RPG or story-driven games I really enjoy I tend to get attached to the cast & world by the end of the game. I find empathy to be an important aspect of enjoying an RPG/story-driven to be honest. If I can't feel for the characters and their troubles, then I don't really see the point in continuing the game.

Emotionally attached, no.

But obviously I have characters I like and it sucks when they die...or vice versa when someone is an asshole its great to see them die.

@CrankyFlameBunny and RavenXtra:

very true about RPGs, but by no means automatic, if the PC has his/her own personality, it's outstanding enough and I like it, I can get attached to it, like in many RPG masterpieces, but also in Thief, while if the PC is just a front-end for me in the game, like in Morrowind, or personality of the PC isn't amongst the main strong points of the game, like in Gothic, I get attached to the PC for all the efforts I made to create and grow it, but not to the character itself.

No, but I get emotionally attached to my penis. Does that count?