As someone who played and loved Origins when it was first released, all I wanted was more of that, yet even better. More tactical combat where every party member can be controlled, an interesting story, the option to roleplay an evil character, meaningful choices, a character creator with sliders that actually do something, and attractive female companions. Instead, I got a game with mediocre action RPG combat, cringe-worthy dialogue at times, no evil choices, not even the option to be mean, and the almost complete removal of "dark" from a dark medieval fantasy series.
Most insufferable of all, it's of course filled with neo-Marxist (woke) ideology. The cast of characters is more "diverse" than ever except for the villains who are mostly white men, the female companions all look like they're 35+ years old, and gender-obsessed nonsense such as "non-binary" in a setting where it has no place whatsoever. These things are no doubt a large component of why the game has received praise from the usual suspects in the gaming media, but the majority of players do not want these things in their games.
I would surprised if this game cost less than $150 million to develop, and judging by the Steam player count I would say they're not going to get the sales they hoped for. All they had to do was make a game more like Origins sans the wokeness and they would've had a big success on their hands, but I doubt they even have the talent to do that if they wanted to.
This game has proven that BioWare is essentially dead. It's BioWare in name only. They may get enough sales to hobble along for a bit longer, but the company that produced many great games in the 2000s is long gone.