Length: In my opinion it was way too short. They force you to do tasks such as closing rifts and gathering elfroot or bear pelts or other junk to get the power required to progress the main story which pads out your game time by a LOT but the main plot is like 15 hours long. Many people like doing the fetch quests and wandering the maps so this may or may not be an issue. (it's a huge issue for me)
Story: I thought the story was good and flowed and fit together much better than DA2 but the main villain was weak and generic and where DA2 and ME3 had you constantly fail at every turn, DA:I has you constantly winning with only one setback (which turns out in your favor) it needed a balance of ups and downs and the feel of a struggle. Balance. There is also only one ending no matter what you do which is disappointing.
Characters: I thought all of the companions were good as always and their personal quests were even better than previous games. NPCs on the other hand are severely lacking, it doesn't feel like a BioWare game in this respect. Scout Harding, Chancellor Roderick, and Alexius (and by extension Felix) were interesting but most of the plot related NPCs were shallow, undeveloped, and you are given no reason to care about them (ex: Fiona, Celine/Gaspard/Briala, etc...). Unlike previous games, there are no sidequest NPCs that are interesting (the Crestwood mayor is ok but he's the only one that comes close). The NPCs are there to stand in one place and make you get them a ring or 5 irons with your only possible dialogue options being "tell me more" or "goodbye" most of them don't even have names. There are certainly none that people would be requesting for the next game (ex: Dagna, Feynriel, crazy hermit from DA:O, etc...). Your companion input is also severely cut down. The most input your companions give during a cutscene for example is making a short comment which is usually meh such as Varric calling lord Erimond a tool but there was one instance where it was hilarious: Vivienne's interaction with Fiona
There's no opportunity for the companions to get really involved like Fenris squeezing people's hearts to make them tell you information or Merril ruining your lie about there being a fire in an attempt to make some guards leave, etc...Sometimes they can say a line or two to recruit an agent but it just feels so bland to me.
Music: Music during the cutscenes is great, it's nonexistent 95% of the time while exploring. It plays in infrequent 10-30 second bursts and apparently this was intentional.
Choices and consequences: There is very little choice in DA:I. None of the side quests have any choice, not even roleplaying/character building "flavor" choices (unless you count judgments) and the only main plot choices that change anything beyond a short conversation or scene are : mages or Templars (the best choice and gives you a different quest depending on what you pick), do puzzles in the temple of Mythal or follow your enemy, and maybe drink from the well or don't drink (I haven't tried both). None of your choices affect the outcome of the game or put you in a stronger or weaker position. You're also not able to be evil and your personality choices are not that different. All are kind of middle of the road and you never have the opportunity to be extremely angry and vengeful towards someone who wronged you, in tears at something tragic or upsetting, etc...It's more like gruff and annoyed at most or politely solemn like you'd be if you saw a news article about a bus crash but didn't know any of the people who died. One of the most disappointing aspects of the game for me.
Visuals: The graphics are beautiful and there are some neat weather effects. Your character has several different kinds of animations for exploration alone ex: normal walk/run (well not so normal if you're a female ugh) going up a non steep hill, going up a steep hill, going down a hill or sliding down a steep hill are all different and well done. The textures are great. Remember that weird wood grain texture in DA2 that was applied to everything? Well it's dead and gone for good and everything has a detailed and appropriate texture. As a seamstress I especially appreciate the painstaking detail on the fabric textures. When crafting mage armors for the first time I was blown away by how accurate they were. They even got the difference between velvet and velveteen right and the silk brocade has just the right sheen and...ahem. Yes, top notch. The maps are gorgeous, detailed, and varied. If they had been filled with interesting side quests and/or the story took you to and involved each place it would have been amazing.
Character customization: The CC is the most detailed and extensive that BioWare has ever done. It's light years ahead of their previous ones and you can make anything from an ethereal beauty to a hilarious monstrosity and anything in between. I was able to make an inquisitor looking close enough to how I look in real life that it creeps me out a little to play her. The facial textures are great and I love the addition of scars and freckles! I had been hoping for a better makeup system but I'd never dreamed they would give us an entire color wheel as well as intensity sliders for each aspect of makeup, it's absolutely perfect.
The glaring downside of the CC is the hair, eyebrows, and beards. The beards aren't as big of a deal for me personally since I prefer stubble if I choose facial hair, but many people prefer beards and they are not only poorly modeled and textured compared to the skin, clothing, and everything else in the game but they often float off the face, leaving gaps of air between the face and the beard. The eyebrows have a few nice styles but 80% of them at least are joke options that wouldn't look good on any character other than the most stylized, bulbous nosed, bushy bearded male dwarf (coincidentally the least played option). The hair is just plain awful, worse than BioWare has ever done before (aside from ME3 perhaps). For one, there are far fewer hairstyles than in the past which they seemed like they were trying to hide by making all hairstyles available to both genders. They also seem to have decided that "gender neutral" meant that every hairstyle had to have either sideburns or a receding hairline, including the ones that would have been nice and feminine otherwise. Half of the hairstyles are a version of bald or shaved, most of the ones left are weird attempts at modern styles such as the "Miley Cyrus" and the "Skrillex." They're also very poorly textured compared to the rest of the game. As bad as the shared options for the humans, elves, and dwarves are the options for the Qunari are even worse. They only get 3 hairstyles none of them are fashionable or well modeled and there is no option to have longer (shoulder length) hair like every Qunari we've seen pre DA:I. Awful, just awful.