90% of all things are built upon the backs of other ideas, for example Paley built upon Thomas Aquinas's 5th proof of god and came up with the teleological argument (NOT saying that it's a good argument or that the 5th proof is ANY good). The problem is that reviewers like to pick and choose which games are just not doing it well enough or just not doing it at all, which is a big problem.
Amalur for instance was ATTEMPTING to get a more action focused game whilst still holding up RPG style games, this apparently turned out to be more like a single player DCUO with a different setting, Lots of people criticise IGN's review because they said that it was amazing and that the quests were great, but in the actual livestream the reviewer actually confessed to not having done much of the side quests, especially the stuff that wasn't linked to the factions, that's not to say that it lets the review off the hook completely because I have not played the retail version and cannot judge whether or not the immersion is as apparently bad if you do the side quests, and IGN should have done more of the side quests because side quests are (currently) a staple of the RPG genre.
There is also the simple fact of time playing, we do not know how long the reviewers have had the game, IGN may have played it more than gamespot, but equally, the gamespot reviewer may have felt bogged down by the side quests from the first area like TotalBiscuit (whom yersterday did a livestream for the game that was at least 4 hours long) seemed to have been, and then rushed the story along to get the review out on time, again I am not creating excuses for the game, I am simply laying out factual possibilties.
Another problem that goes with play time, is character development, all characters change over time, this is a fact, be it appearance or personality or mannerisms, characters change, just like people. Harry potter for example has some interesting character from the get go, and while I hate to bring it up, Twilight achieves an interesting character because the main character is pretty much like the majority of the girls that love it (google "the oatmeal twilightfor more information on why it's so popular), (to an extent i think the lord of the rings films do it aswell, I know people that love the films but find the books boring, I'll admit I haven't gotten round to reading them yet but what I gather is that the first movie showcases interesting characters quickly which is probably due to the fact that you can do express things more easily with actions that words, like merry and pippin setting off the firewords at the beginning of the first film).
The problem I viewed from the demo and from the livestreams (TotalBiscuits and some of Ciderhelms) yesterday was that the beginning of the game didn't express many (if any) immediately interesting characters, the dwarves in the well of souls are with you for a short time at the beginning of the game, which saddened me because the guy that actually created the well of souls from which you come from seemed like an interesting fellow and then he just disappeared, the next person whom is of any interest was the Fae whom you talk to for a cure in the 'Building Bridges' quest but for those people who are like her she's just another realist, being cold to things is a by-product of that, I'll admit I took a little comfort in the Fae because they all seem to not be too bothered by much and I can identify with that, one of their quests is about a guy called Sir sagrell and no one seems to bothered about the guy dieing, confused yes but not bothered because it just means that his song was changed, and I'll admit that this is probably one of the reasons I like amalur: everyone accepts their fate because there's no way to change it.
Back to my point, the characters may grow later in the game and the people that review the game may not have seen them grow due to either the lack of original interest or due to time constraints, but again, this is not making an excuse for the game because its the fault of the developers for not making the characters interesting.
Finally, origin stories, it might be hard to be original with these but that shouldn't stop you from trying, every RPG i have ever played starts you as a blank slate in one way or another, how about forcing a kind of class onto us in the beginning of the game and then letting us quest into a different class maybe I'm the son of a warrior and am expected to be a hero and die in battle but I don't want to be? It's not even like you have to make it a set class either because you could create as many classes as you want and then give them all their own starting place or story which is randomised?
anyway, I've said my piece, sorry about the wall of text.
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