I think my experience with this game can be summarised in 3 letters: wow! Ok 3 letters and an exclamation mark. At the beginning of the game I was honestly a bit taken aback because even though I had played DA:O (and finished twice) and DA II I didn't quite understand what was going on -to begin with I didn't know what on earth a Conclave is but anyway, moving on- and the animations were at times a bit... clumsy during the dialogues/events. But soon I realised what a jewel this game really is.
I spent my first (ten!) hours in the Hinterlands, mostly because I am a freak and wanted to finish every single side quest before I moved on to other areas.However, the game offers a series of diverse areas (lakes, sea coasts, deserts, forests, frozen mountains etc) and is in fact huge. You can spend hours moving around the game searching for treasures and stuff to kill (templars, mages, giants and of course dragons!) and might sometimes stop to observe the beauty of the areas. Of course there are also some annoying fetch quests -does the Inquisition not have hunters to gather all the freaking leather? Why does the Inquisitor... argh whatever, I quit- but these are mostly in the Hinterlands. After that the game changes the questing philosophy and you will pretty much be able to finish many side quests by chance while exploring. There are also the usual collectibles (Mosaic pieces, bottles of thedas, crystal shards etc) some of which are actually useful for opening doors and finding treasures (keep an eye out for those Astariums and those Crystal Shards)
Being a fan of the Dragon Age series I was thrilled by the way that Inquisition builds on the lore of the DA universe as a lot of new things are revealed (especially about the elves and elven mythology) and it is once again in your hands to make world-changing decisions. Old characters are back (if they survived the first 2 games) and will assist you in certain quests of the main story or appear to offer you cryptic hints of the future and to.. just be awesome. But the greatest addition is the new characters. I got to love most of them (yeah that one out is you Vivienne), not only through their personal quests but mostly through their random dialogues with each other and with you during the game and during exploration. Seriously, the dialogues are smart and there is loads of humor. I personally laughed a lot during the game and spent a few of my hours running around with different party setups trying to trigger those conversations. Remember though, the characters are not all happy and cheerful, some of their stories are actually heartbreaking (Vivienne's still didn't manage to make me like her).
Combat is quite smooth, enjoyful and can be quite challenging in high difficulties. "Tactics" option has been toned down compared to the previous two games and you mostly do stuff by using the tactical camera and controlling characters on your own. I played as a mage (as usual) and chose to go with the Knight Enchanter specialisation. To be honest I kind of regretted the decision, the fact being that KE is quite overpowered and allows you to solo pretty much everything in the game (on one occassion I gave up on my companions and just solo'ed a dragon). Bear in mind that you CAN NOT change your specialization after you choose one.
Overall, I believe this game deserves a 10/10 despite its slight drawbacks (ehem bugs). Looking forwards to the DLCs already!!