The well-developed characters and brilliant story almost overshadow the greatness of the game's play style... Almost
First off, I'd like to say how brilliant the difficulty levels are. Not simply does it change the health/strength of enemies, but it affects if your party will take friendly fire, brilliant. I'm playing on Hard mode (Which allows for your party to take 50% friendly fire damage) where I find myself dying acceptably often.
Fans of Morrowind and Oblivion might initially be disappointed by the seeming lack of character choices at the beginning of the game (Dwarf, Elf, or Human; Warrior, Rogue, or Mage), but I assure you its not a big deal as each class gains access to your choice of two sub-classes, making your character feel very unique.
The coolest thing I've never seen in a previous RPG that all should adopt in the future, is you can mark items in your inventory as junk, and it is put in a separate part of your bag where it can all be sold to vendors with one button.
The graphics aren't particularly impressive for the PS3, but isn't unforgivable given the game's scope. Minor graphical glitches will catch your eye, but as soon as the characters start talking you'll immediately be drawn back into the world. The story is brilliant and unpredictable, and the characters' voice acting makes it feel real. You'll want to learn more about every character in your party, as they all have hidden features of their past that you can only learn by gaining influence with them.
The lack of a morality meter here was sad at first, but Its grown on me. Gone are the days of me playing Knights of the Old Republic looking at the dialogue options wondering which one might get me a dark side point so I can force choke the crap out of people without running out of energy. In Dragon Age, you have individual bars of support from party members which contributes towards your relationships with them, but there is no grand morality meter. Although it prevents the LionsHead trademark of changing how you look based on how evil you are like in Fable, it does make you feel like you're allowed to be yourself in your character. You don't look at options as "I can't say that, it will make me more evil" you look at them as "I'm usually a nice guy, but I hate this dude. He's getting an arrow in his face." and just do it.
I have not fully completed the game, which only stopped me from accidently throwing out spoilers, but I have played the game enough to recommend it to anyone who like to play RPGs. Anyone. I sincerely doubt there will be a better RPG released before Final Fantasy XIII comes out