Karma really isn't anything else than a kind of measure for your actions and how the world should react to them/you.
The issue with Bioware games that widely made this element popular is that it's always very obvious. In Jade Empire it kinda resonnated well because we associate Karma to eastern cultures and, well, JE was set in a fantasy ancient China. In Mass Effect the french translation of "Renegade" was "Pragmatic", which made it into a sensibly more interesting concept than just "evil". However ME2 blew it because every "renegade" actions were mostly "evil". In a Starwars game it also makes sense because of the very concept of the Force and its dark and light side.
BUT now we are starting to get tired of this simplistic element. I think we'd rather have it as a hidden feature that calculates how people see us and behave when we're around. Something that we wouldn't be able to track but still would have to keep in mind.