Dragon Age RPG Player's Guide Review

I'm not a fan of video games, so i haven't played the console or PC version of Dragon Age, but with all the wonderful things i have heard about it by people who are and have, i thought the pen and paper version had to at least be worth reading.

The first thing that i found off-putting was that the books come in $30 boxed sets.  That might be ok in theory, except that the first set (Players Guide, Game Master's Guide, and a map of Ferelden) only gives you rules for character levels 1-5.  Apparently the next boxed set, due out in 6 months, will contain levels 6-10, the next will contain another 5 levels, etc.  It's going to get expensive to play a single character through much advancement.  Designer Chris Pramas claims it will be more digestible for new players, but personally, i would rather spend $50 for one 'intimidating' fat book that will allow me to play a basic character through max advancement, than $120 on "more digestible" chunks over time.  Though i do suppose there's no reason to buy future sets anyway for those of us that were underwhelmed by the first.

My next gripe is that the character choices are limited: elf, dwarf, human; warrior, mage, rogue.  That's it.  It could be that that's all the video game offers, but i require more diversity.  Basic character creation is thus: you get 8 abilities, determined by random rolls.  Skill checks are 3d6+ability (+/- bonuses/penalties).  You can customize your character with ability focuses, backgrounds (think 'city elf' or 'surface dwarf'), and talents (skills).  You gain class powers by level.

Combat: for some reason it took the writers five steps to tell us roll for initiative; winner goes first, etc. They hid the fact that you get both something called a 'major action' and something called a 'minor action' each turn in step 4.  By step 8 i realize the authors are still just telling us to take turns.  :|  Minor vs Major actions are what they sound like and make sense once listed (ie: aim and shoot).  Moving on.  What combat really involves is making an ability roll against your opponent's defense score.  Well that's disappointingly simple after more than a page on the process of determining an initiative order.  We add complication with something called stunt points.  There are also modifiers for riding a mount into combat.

There's a lot of fluff, which i promptly ignored.  It might be brilliant, but not what i'm looking for in a game, especially one that's heavily targeted at people who have played the video game and presumably know enough of the storyline to not really need extensive world info.  Keep in mind the book is only 66 pages long.  That space would be put to better use with more spells!
There's just not much to this pdf.  As awesome and action-packed as the video game allegedly is, i was expecting more fun stuff, maybe even enough to convince me to try the Xbox 360 version.  As it stands, my answer to that question is still "meh."

Good points: the art is pretty, and there are maps.

In conclusion, this game seems to be completely playable if you have no illusions of playing high or even mid-level characters.  It just doesn't do anything for me that other games don't already do better.