Bailing on Dragon Age Origins, maybe Dragon Age II?

Well, I tried to like Dragon Age Origins, and got further into it than I ever have before... but, in the end, I just couldn't force myself to stick with it.  The "dark fantasy" setting is fine, and the standard "save the world from impending doom" story-line is fine, but the mechanics of the game just don't work for me.

I think the main problem is that the game wants to be more than one thing, which ends up compromising the whole.  It lets you build a character to your tastes, using a new-to-this-series character system with loads of detail, complete with different opening scenarios based on the choices you make... then saddles you with multiple, changing companion characters, and expect you to learn how they work as well, so you can take them over if need be (like, for example, your main character gets knocked out) and tweak their AI so they act competently when you're not controlling them.  It wants to be a real-time tactical game, but it also wants to be cinematic... so, sometimes, you'll get a cut-scene or similar, then dropped as a party into an untenable situation.  All that, and some of the problems that plague other games in this genre (for example, you can have multiple companions, but only three plus yourself in the active party, but you can swap out companions readily, without any in-game justification for why your party size is restricted), add up to a game I just don't want to play, for all I enjoyed some of the situations you're put into.

With that in mind, I had some serious reservations about starting up Dragon Age II, the next game in my XBox 360 backlog... but it appears that Bioware, makers of both games, learned some things from the first game.  The second game features a simplified version of the character system from the first game, with better communication as to why you might want to invest in the various stats and skills, and has pivoted to an "action" RPG, mainly meaning so far that spamming the base attack button is now required when you're not using a skill... but the skills also tend to be more flashy, helping change the feel of the game a bit.  That, plus a much less traditional story that's only loosely tied to the events of the first game (in fact, you're basically indentured for the duration of the events of the first game) gives me enough interest to give it a go.

Strangely, the changes between the two Dragon Age games also make me want to take a look at the Mass Effect series again at some point, which was also produce by Bioware.  I played a little of the original Mass Effect, and was similarly turned off by the mechanics involved.  I later played Mass Effect Andromeda, and, while it wasn't exactly earth-shattering, it was a passable sci-fi RPG.  Maybe enough of the mechanical differences made their way into earlier games to make #2 and #3 worth a go?  Eh, I'll keep an eye for them on sale, maybe.