Well I've played DAO a bit, and I've got to admit it's real pretty, but... it lacks the emersive feel of the older games like Baldurs Gate. In those older RPGs you could open almost any door in a city, and search anywhere, sometimes getting thrown out, sometimes uncovering a little side story, when travelling you could actual walk through all the maps if you wanted to, which felt more like real life. That's noticably missing from Dragons Age Origins, as it was from Neverwinter Nights.
I expect we will see that level of interactivity again in the future. But at this point modeling all these extra areas in 3D is just too much, too expensive in time, money, and memory. I can't wait for a 3D game that's on the level of Baldurs Gate...