PRAISE THE MAKER BIOWARE FINALLY ADDDED NUDITY IN SEX SCENES IN DRAGON AGE INQUISITION:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_uy4OSpUKE#t=373

NO MORE TEASING OR UNDERWEAR GRINDING AT LAST!!

Sorry for the reaction I am just through with what Bioware thinks is "Sex" Appearently they nuts up since Mass Effect 1. Mass Effect 2 was such a tease, Dragon Age: Origins was weird (but better sex and nude mods helped) and the teaseing continued in DA 2 and ME 3.

Finally they nuts up after fear of another Mass Effect 1 sex scandal :P

I don't think the combat is MMO-like. Origins arguable had MMO combat because of the focus on cooldowns and such. This has the same thing but very action focused. You have to aim somewhat to hit with most attacks, and you really only control one person at a time unless you're insane. It feels like Dragon Age mixed with an action game like Kingdoms of Amalur, which ends up doing neither style well. Trying to appeal to RPG gamers and casual action gamers has been Bioware's thing for a while now and they get no closer to pleasing everyone here.

It's the quests and world design that are right out of an MMO. You're basically exploring MMO zones and doing MMO style filler quests for 90% of the game. Then you do a main story mission and wonder "how come all quests and combat scenarios aren't this interesting?"

seems like the drm-wannabe "Denuvo" got cracked by some Chinese people, the news is all over the place

http://www.dsogaming.com/news/report-denuvo-drm-system-has-been-cracked/

This one was going on my Christmas list, but I don't expect to get a game that expensive for a while. It still looks awesome to me. Maybe I will get the older DA games instead.

Does the "MMO" Zones have certain clusters of the same enemy in the field. Like in Northshire Abbey in WOW its full of Blackrock Orcs and Wargs.
I am waiting for an Ultimate Edition or at least when all the DLC is released so I purchase the ones I deem worth it.

I am aware that Bioware will not include "an extra party member" DLC like Stone Prisoner and From Ashes in ME 3.

Finished it with a completionist approach, though I missed a few pieces - clocked in at around 90 hours.

Story: overall good to very good.
The story as a whole is worth it. Not Game of Thrones level, but certainly good with nice twists and turns and a few WTF? moments (in a good way). Tons of past character appearances / references.
The 2 "problems" I have with it is mainly the bad guy which comes over a bit overdrawn - especially in the final battle where he shows an amount of power, you can't help but ask yourself: "why doesn't he just crush those 4 guys like ants?".
The second is the depiction of the Grey Wardens... given how much they have been idolized in the series so far, they come up more than just bad - gullible beyond believe. Anyone who had problems with the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout 3 and loved the Grey Wardens so far - be warned, you will likely hate their story arc.
However, there where also fantastic events that none can tell me believable they saw coming, which I can't describe without spoiling.

Characters:
Not reaching Origins or DA2 level. Loved Leliana. Liked Varric and Cassandra. Sera, Solas, Cole.... they're certainly different, though not in a good way for me. Some companions personal quests felt lackluster.

Choices and consequences:
Don't feel like it had a major impact, though I may be wrong on that one. More than not it felt just like going through different loops to get the same result. Apart from 3-4 choices that I made, I felt the warroom and my choices there were more difficult and had more impact.

Combat: not fish, not flesh.
It's not Dragon Age 2 bad, but the tactical option feels more like tacked on. Tried it, rather quickly dismissed it and went with the action-approach.

Technical problems: little to almost none.
Biggest problem is the camera, especially in cut-scenes. Also a few glitches like people walking through a wooden scaffolding, NPC standing inside a chair, talking with someone inside a house then a sudden switch to a cut-scene outside.... stuff like that.
Audio levels seem to be a bit off too. Especially the chitchat between current partmembers or within quest-scenes was too quiet compared with the rest of the gameworld - had to switch on sub-titles to not miss half of it.
Had 1 game crash in the final battle. No idea where that came from or why. 1 in 90 hours and a ton of alt-tabbing, I'd consider nothing.

Other stuff note worty:
+ loved the small part of the Fade that you can enter - sooo much better than ever before.
+/- the political game in Orlais. Nice change of gameplay mechanics, away from primarily fighting to espionage / detective work (though without much depth to it). Disliked that there's a invisible timer running, forcing you to know and speed through it to get the most out of it.
+ the warroom with decisions how / with which advisor to handle (seemingly) smaller issues.

I’d call it an open world collectable game in the vein of Far Cry, Batman, etc. I suspect people are more prone to MMO comparisons simply because of the fantasy setting and the occasional ‘kill ten boars’ quest has strong MMO connotations.

Does it even have auto-attack yet? Sounds dumb to be stuck on one character mashing attack when you want to play the tactical game.

So I take it from the opinions as get only at 75% off? Or is it better to wait for a free version 5 years later?

It seems that you've already made your mind about the game and nothing can be said that will change it. I myself love the game, it's money well spent for me.

As for auto-attack, my team mates do attack automatically and if you mean for the character you control, you can just press and hold the mouse button to continuously attack the target.

If you play ranged then yeah, holding LMB basically means "auto-attack," though you still have to aim at who you want to hit as well. If you play melee then you have to constantly position yourself to hit people, and can't hold LMB all the time because you can't move and swing at the same time and will just swing at air. So no auto-attack at all there, in any fashion.

The issues with the game are pretty obvious cw8. What is important to figure out is how much they will matter to you. If MMO questing, MMO zones full of pretty nothing and action game controls matter to you a lot then yeah, wait for a $20 or less sale. If those sound like things you can look past for the main story and pretty areas then get it at a higher price. :)

Something about the Dragon Age franshise rubs me the wrong way. It's so damn trashy in the worst sense. Origins was like that, and I just have to watch a random Inquisition video to see Facebook goths inserted into Fantasy ennui or swaths of bilious green colour. And for all that, it's so self-important, so huge and so expensive.

The thought that after thousands of years of human civilization someone spent many millions of dollars to create this monstrosity makes me feel like we should just start over again from the very beginning.

If controls are all that you are worried about, Origin does have a game guarantee. If you book in a refund request within 24hrs after you launch the game, you get your money back. Of course, you'd need to purchase the game directly from the Origin store. Keys from other portals and retail versions are not covered.

Since I winded up not having much trouble of anything, I kept my copy of the game. I love it and am enjoying myself so far.

If I were you, I wouldn't mind waiting. The game is still a little buggy here and there. And once the fixes are totally done, and there will be DLCs released at some point, you know you'd get a package deal at a lower price.

Finished the game. My thoughts haven't really changed. Terrible side quests and filler content, empty areas filled with MMO design. Main quests are decent, story is okay but not great, villain is terrible, sex scenes are embarrassing, combat is more action focused but okay.

Meh.

How would you make sex scenes not embarrising?

Also its the only Bioware game with full nudity so expect the same for Mass Effect 4.

It isn't "full nudity" if gender parts aren't existent. Kinda like a skin overall, still better than crude underwear.