Pros: Story, Graphics, Open world
Cons: Gameplay, AI

I love the DA universe and I can't even count the number of times I rerun DAO, experimenting with different classes and choices. When DA2 came out, it wasn't as big of a disappointment for me as the reviews, which I'd read before the purchase, said. But DAI, oh boy, it's on another level of frustration (for me).

1) The AI. It's dumb. That's it. Tanks wait for 5 seconds before engaging a mage who teleported. Pathing is ducked up. Range characters won't kite if attacked with melee, they also like to stand really close to huge dragons. AI would use spells on foes with immunity to the element of those spells, dealing 1 dmg.

Result: Much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare.

2) The game is not Friendly Fire... friendly. I played both previous games with FF and loved the additional challenge of positioning and skill-building. In DAI, the combat system is simply not designed for FF, as if they just added the option at the last moment without any testing and balance in mind. Many spells are not circle\area based but just zap on random, some front-directed skills would still hit an ally who is behind the character casting the skill. Basically, you will never use chain lightning as a mage, it's just plain suicide. "BuT iT MeAnS YoU nEeD tO ChOosE DiFeReNt SkILlS", I don't care, I wanna go Bzzz!

Result: Much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare.

3) No tactics. They (for some unimaginable reason) removed the tactics customization, at least the way it was in the previous games. The behavior you can customize is a speck compared to what you could do in DAO or DA2. Combined with the AI stupidity, this drawback multiplies the frustration tenfolds.

Result: Much, much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare.

4) Tactical camera. In DAI and DA2, you had to right-click on the enemy for any character to attack it. In DAI, they changed it so that you need to hold an attack button and stand in close proximity in order to attack an enemy OR toggle a tactical mode with horrid camera controls to simply point and right-click like before. This division feels really weird for the first couple of hours, but I guess you can get used to it eventually. Also, SPACE is "jump" now, I can't count the number of times I pressed it to pause the time.

You won't probably like it if you like playing games on the highest difficulties or at least looking for a challenge, as it's not fun to play on higher difficulties.

You will probably like it if you want to plow through the game on normal just to immerse yourself in the story.
You will probably like it if you like micromanaging every characters' actions in similar games.

If you haven't played DAO and\or DA2, I highly recommend starting with those two first.

Pros: Story, Graphics, Open world Cons: Gameplay, AI I love the DA universe and I can't even count the number of times I rerun DAO, experimenting with different classes and choices. When DA2 came out, it wasn't as big of a disappointment for me as the reviews, which I'd read before the purchase, said. But DAI, oh boy, it's on another level of frustration (for me). 1) The AI. It's dumb. That's it. Tanks wait for 5 seconds before engaging a mage who teleported. Pathing is ducked up. Range characters won't kite if attacked with melee, they also like to stand really close to huge dragons. AI would use spells on foes with immunity to the element of those spells, dealing 1 dmg. Result: Much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare. 2) The game is not Friendly Fire... friendly. I played both previous games with FF and loved the additional challenge of positioning and skill-building. In DAI, the combat system is simply not designed for FF, as if they just added the option at the last moment without any testing and balance in mind. Many spells are not circle\area based but just zap on random, some front-directed skills would still hit an ally who is behind the character casting the skill. Basically, you will never use chain lightning as a mage, it's just plain suicide. "BuT iT MeAnS YoU nEeD tO ChOosE DiFeReNt SkILlS", I don't care, I wanna go Bzzz! Result: Much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare. 3) No tactics. They (for some unimaginable reason) removed the tactics customization, at least the way it was in the previous games. The behavior you can customize is a speck compared to what you could do in DAO or DA2. Combined with the AI stupidity, this drawback multiplies the frustration tenfolds. Result: Much, much more micromanagement and frustration, especially if you like playing games on Nightmare. 4) Tactical camera. In DAI and DA2, you had to right-click on the enemy for any character to attack it. In DAI, they changed it so that you need to hold an attack button and stand in close proximity in order to attack an enemy OR toggle a tactical mode with horrid camera controls to simply point and right-click like before. This division feels really weird for the first couple of hours, but I guess you can get used to it eventually. Also, SPACE is "jump" now, I can't count the number of times I pressed it to pause the time. You won't probably like it if you like playing games on the highest difficulties or at least looking for a challenge, as it's not fun to play on higher difficulties. You will probably like it if you want to plow through the game on normal just to immerse yourself in the story. You will probably like it if you like micromanaging every characters' actions in similar games. If you haven't played DAO and\or DA2, I highly recommend starting with those two first.