I had a real good time with Dragon Age: Inquisition when it came out. So did a lot of people. It reviewed well, but it had the misfortune to come out six months before The Witcher 3, which rewrote everyone's expectations for what this kind of open-enclosure RPG could be. The Witcher 3 asks: "What if (some of) the sidequests were (almost) as good as the main quests?" Compared to that, zones full of collectible shards and connect-the-dots puzzles start to look pretty weak.
It's not an entirely fair comparison. Those smuggling caches Geralt hunted for were right out of a Ubisoft open world. I'd say they should get in the sea, but the problem is half of them are already there. And some of the "sidequests" people praised, like the Bloody Baron, aren't sidequests at all. That one's on the critical path. You can't skip it. It's a main quest, guys.
