The combat is a boring slog if you aren't playing a nuker mage, it is easily the weakest aspect of the game.
Meat of the game is the strong role playing which stems from the diverse and numerous dialogue options. There's no dumbed down diagloue wheel with a paragon, rengade and funny option. There is no karma meter with light side or dark side points.
You can be a mage who is generally an affable person who hates templars with a passion
You can be violent person who has a soft spot for the oppressed and downtrodden elves
You can be a selfless, but also pragmatic person who makes hard decisions for the greater good
Bottom line is there is a lot depth in how you can play your character and there are not many games like this.
The combat in DA:O is so boring I just have it all on automatic and entertain myself with the random antics of different AI settings. The one thing that stands out is the combo thingies, which I didn't even realize were in the game till much later, so I only had a fleeting experience of them, but I gather they're pretty good fun.
Yeah, you can criticize DA:O on several points, but it's still one of the best storyfag CRPGs ever done, very immersive the first time through, as it's unfolding. It's the only CRPG that's brought a literal tear to my eye with a particular quest resolution, like one might have for a particularly moving moment in a movie.
I think the game's music is also a big part of its charm, more than usually with games - it's a great score, particularly the campfire ambient music, which sets an amazingly elegiac tone to the epic you're partaking in. The game is also surprisingly gritty and brutal in places, re. what happens to the civvies, which helps set a realistic tone as well.
The Fade is also rather well done if you've ever been interested in the Occult, because it's pretty much what occultists are talking about when they're talking about the "Astral Plane." The system is also authentic to the way magic is conceived in most actual human traditions. The power of a mage doesn't come from himself - it's not like he's a mediaeval version of a superhero, like the sorcerer kinda is - but rather from the entities he converses with, and engages the services of, in the Astral Plane, ranging from minor servants to full-on, dangerous and tricksy demons and spirits of various kinds. (Vancian magic also gets this right to varying degrees.) The dream-like nature of the Fade sequences, the bizarre conversations, the riddles, etc., are I think meant to mimic - well, the feeling of a dream, but also the feeling of "Astral travel" or OOBEs. I know some found the Fade sequences tedious, but for the most part I found them interesting because they had clearly been quite well thought-out in terms of authenticity to how "real" magic is conceived in various cultures.
I also find the dynamic between Templars and Mages quite "realistic" as these things go. If magic were real, etc., etc.
The lore is generally pretty good. I thought the live action web show with Felicia Day was actually surprisingly good in presenting another story in the virtual world of Ferelden. Her character played a reasonably highly-positioned elfish slave-assassin of the Qunari, struggling between her loyalty to the Qun and gratitude to the Qunari, and her own longing for freedom. Nothing earth-shattering, but I was engaged enough to watch all 7 episodes.