Picked this game up yesterday, after months of being told how great it is.

I've played twenty minutes and I don't think I can play anymore.

I've picked a lady warrior character, gave her a nice voice, and it turns out that she doesn't speak at all.  Just stands there like a mute.

Now I understand that I'm choosing the dialogue that she's supposed to say but I'm hardly going to sit on the sofa, talking out loud in a woman's voice, besides, none of the onscreen characters would hear me!

After so much Mass Effect, the fact that my character doesn't talk has created a massive disconnect for me.  I don't want my 'hero' to be a mute.  Are they next going to ask me to control a 'blind hero' in DA2?  Should be interesting.

I cannot get into the character at all.

Gutted.

I think it's definitely worth more of a shot than twenty minutes. The dialogue responses in text don't detract from the games story in the slightest. Give it another go my friend.. didn't get raving reviews for nothing.

I'm in the MLG Host camp on this one, i'm really feeling the love for my Elf mage at the moment, the only thing that i feel is slightly lacking is some more in depth instructions on how the various skills work.

Give it another go, as matt says its more traditional than Mass Effect but after a while it starts to feel like a good book, you end up reading your characters voice in your head. The story really gets going and the other characters chat and interaction with each other is ace.

Just watch out in the brothel, don't choose the surprise. I ended up shagging a husky trannie dwarf. I actually felt physical shame after. Had to go back in three times for the ladies.

sorry to put a downer on all this dragon age love but I ended up quite disappointed with DAO after a fantastic first few hours, and never got to complete the game

I sank 40 hours into it but became really frustrated with the combat, I guess I should have dumbed down to easy just to wade through to the end but my ego is far too fragile to lower a games difficulty setting half way through

the games difficulty on the PC version when set to normal was such that I was being massively hammered by mages before I could even get a look in, and often pummelled from all sides by archers

potions / materials to make potions were really hard to find -  and the lack of good quality information about spells and skill trees meant it was really easy to gimp your character

I guess the other issue though was just the amount of time it takes to complete a game like this, particularly with all the saving and reloading involved – I suppose it has become the norm for rpg's to take sometimes well over 40 hours to complete, for me thats several weeks of gaming time

shame really because so many aspects of this game are absolutely top notch

advice to any new starters – roll with easy right from the start, and dont roll a mage – they die

I've restarted the game on the strength of this thread – paying more attention to the story and less to the combat – dropped the mage in favour of melee and turned it down to easy – blasting through hack n slash style and enjoying it all the more for it

LOL Sten is a bit of a git agreed, you want to get the Shale dlc she's awesome and a good laugh – Elven Rouge FTW Hugo old chap