Before the release of Dreadwolf I went against my better judgement and decided to do my mage playthrough of 2, and to my surprise, the DLC worked this time. So after completing the game both as a mage and as a warrior as well as the two DLC stories, I've decided the game is worth playing. But I don't think you should get it here, or on EA. Find a way to get and play it that doesn't require the EA app. I'll give you a brief explanation of the technical problems then I'll talk a little about the actual gameplay and story.

This game has always had problems with crashing. It got worse with the move from Origin to EA Play. There is a fix that helps many people, but not all of them. Likewise there has been a problem getting the dlc to actually work (which, mind you, costs MONEY to buy, so not being able to play it is the equivalent of buying something on Amazon and it never arrives, then support tells you to piss off), which had a workaround that worked about 50% of the time judging by the reviews. If you can get the game from anywhere else that doesn't require you use the EA app, I recommend you get and play it that way.

As for the game itself, the story is pretty good, the pacing was fine, the music is as good as usual, the characters have life to them (Merrill is my personal favorite, and Anders may honestly be the best ally in the series). The combat is tedious and in my opinion boring. Just kill a swarm of enemies so that the next swarm of the exact same enemies can come out and be killed again, and the combat system feels like a prototype of what we got in Inquisition build upon the combat system of Origins, which falls short and makes a mockery of what both did well. Outside of the main areas, the zones you explore are the same 4-5 maps that spawn you from a different opening with basically no differences otherwise. A lot of people had complaints about only being allowed to be a human which I do tend to agree with, but as a dev you don't exactly have many options once you make so many plotpoints (even if they are minor ones) hinge upon one family. I will say that after playing through both Origins and Inquisition as a mage on my first respective playthroughs of each, mage feels terribly boring to play in this, which is a bit unfortunate.

TL;DR, The gameplay and combat were chosen to be less fleshed-out in favor of making sure the story was told as well as possible, and I think that if you are a fan of the franchise, the game is worth playing. Just get it somewhere else, because you don't want all the headaches that EA Play will bring with it. The game is a solid 70 (imo Origins is an 85 and Inquisition is a 90; bite me you die-hard DAO Elitists), but the technical issues that come with EA Play make it a 50.

PSA To the DAI-heads looking for some info on the big bad from Inquisition, He's in the DLC "Legacy", but to be honest there is so little actual lore regarding him in the DLC that isn't already said in Inquisition that it honestly isn't worth the time and money if that's literally your only interest in this game. But to be fair his boss fight in this was definitely the best boss fight in the game.

Before the release of Dreadwolf I went against my better judgement and decided to do my mage playthrough of 2, and to my surprise, the DLC worked this time. So after completing the game both as a mage and as a warrior as well as the two DLC stories, I've decided the game is worth playing. But I don't think you should get it here, or on EA. Find a way to get and play it that doesn't require the EA app. I'll give you a brief explanation of the technical problems then I'll talk a little about the actual gameplay and story. This game has always had problems with crashing. It got worse with the move from Origin to EA Play. There is a fix that helps many people, but not all of them. Likewise there has been a problem getting the dlc to actually work (which, mind you, costs MONEY to buy, so not being able to play it is the equivalent of buying something on Amazon and it never arrives, then support tells you to piss off), which had a workaround that worked about 50% of the time judging by the reviews. If you can get the game from anywhere else that doesn't require you use the EA app, I recommend you get and play it that way. As for the game itself, the story is pretty good, the pacing was fine, the music is as good as usual, the characters have life to them (Merrill is my personal favorite, and Anders may honestly be the best ally in the series). The combat is tedious and in my opinion boring. Just kill a swarm of enemies so that the next swarm of the exact same enemies can come out and be killed again, and the combat system feels like a prototype of what we got in Inquisition build upon the combat system of Origins, which falls short and makes a mockery of what both did well. Outside of the main areas, the zones you explore are the same 4-5 maps that spawn you from a different opening with basically no differences otherwise. A lot of people had complaints about only being allowed to be a human which I do tend to agree with, but as a dev you don't exactly have many options once you make so many plotpoints (even if they are minor ones) hinge upon one family. I will say that after playing through both Origins and Inquisition as a mage on my first respective playthroughs of each, mage feels terribly boring to play in this, which is a bit unfortunate. TL;DR, The gameplay and combat were chosen to be less fleshed-out in favor of making sure the story was told as well as possible, and I think that if you are a fan of the franchise, the game is worth playing. Just get it somewhere else, because you don't want all the headaches that EA Play will bring with it. The game is a solid 70 (imo Origins is an 85 and Inquisition is a 90; bite me you die-hard DAO Elitists), but the technical issues that come with EA Play make it a 50. PSA To the DAI-heads looking for some info on the big bad from Inquisition, He's in the DLC "Legacy", but to be honest there is so little actual lore regarding him in the DLC that isn't already said in Inquisition that it honestly isn't worth the time and money if that's literally your only interest in this game. But to be fair his boss fight in this was definitely the best boss fight in the game.