Just finished the PC version on hard. Now I can share my opinion.
Main story is pretty dark and gritty, I liked especially dwarf quest. Still it's not dark fantasy, more like bloody high fantasy. What's good is that you are given choices that actually reflect how the game will end (not as comon as you might think). There are some morally challenging decisions, meaning whatever will you do, you will harm someone.
Side quests are still dull, but there is an improvement in comparison to mass effect.
On PC, fights are as close to BG as I've seen in years. On hard diff. that means spending half of your playtime in pause manually commanding every character to make every skill and spell count as 3-4 normal mobs can kill your tank in 6 secs if left unatended. And bosses can 3-4 shot a tank. You can die even in minor fights if you drop your guard down. That's always good. Still, I cannot imagine playing like that on a console. This game only proves that RPGs like this are simply made for PCs and shows to me how much was sacrificed to make this genre compatibile with consoles. That saddens my heart but still, Dragon Age is a really good game, maybe a bit short of "Baldurs Gate" succesor, but coming closer to this than any recent RPG.