Kind of short (compared to to DA 1).
Kind of cramped.
Story sparked more personal buy-in.
Cared much more about the characters except Anders and Emo Elf. Give me the old Anders back also.
Became particularly fond of a couple party members. So much so that their potential loss was worrisome.
Much smoother game with tons more polish. It was drastically smaller in scope than DA1 with probably two play-throughs in it at best. I was much more invested in (some of) the characters. Decent game 7/10.
The female elf was my favorite piece of writing by far.