It's the path towards the ending that makes the game linear. No matter your choices, you always gain allies and always have to kill the Archdemon. What comes after is fluff.
Compare with Planescape: Torment, where different stats lead to an entirely different playthrough. Not to mention the game does not necessarily end with the mandatory killing of a boss.
Wrong, my city elf character left the Redcliff villagers to face the undead by themselves, upon returning, I found everyone apart from Bann Teagan was dead. This affected many things - the Chanter's board never showed up and neither did the Black Stones or the Mage's collective which means you miss out on many quests as well.
You don't have to kill the Archdemon either, you can have someone else do it. Also, in Awakenings, you can join with the Darkspawn (there are two different fractions as revealed in the expansion) or you can kill all Darkspawn who get in your way. You also get to chose which place to save near the end - a City or your keep. There are many choices which lead to different endings and outcomes and dialogues.
If you fail to steal from a character in the main city for Origins, you will meet guards from time to time when travelling to different places in Denerim, they will attack you.
Different choices means different quests, different dialogues and different endings.
Don't forget, role play means taking on the role of a character, you take on the role of a Grey Warden in DA who can be evil or good but ultimately - his/her job is to end the blight. An RPG never offers all choices now does it? Did Planescape give you the option to sell your soul to a demon for ultimate power in which heroes and kings come after you to kill you? Only NWN did with the toolset in which you could create such an adventure for yourself! But then it's your creation.
What I love about DA is the combat. I've reached the Alienage part again where you must stop the slave traders (of course, you can allow them to go on their way, or battle them and have the blood mage kill them and in return - grant you a bonus to your health), I decided to kill the slave trader leader and I opened up the redial menu before doing so, deciding what combat move I should kill him with - Critical strike was great.
Divinity II doesn't have many choices while you are in combat like DA does, even when you are fighting in DA - you are still presented with many choices of how to win the battle!
Still, Divinity II fighting beats Oblivion fighting which was just "hack hack hack, block, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, stagger, get hit down, hack and kill." I like the rolling and jumping features for Divinity II but the pause system for me - was never really needed.
