I absolute hate the indirect dialog. It constantly pushes me out of immersion. It reminds me that I'm just the puppeteer pulling the strings instead of experiencing the story from the character's perspective.
Unfortunately I don't think it is placeholder text at all. There were comments posted by one of the writers in a kickstarter update that mentioned something about this being done.
It is awful and really hope they take the time to rewrite it all. It leaves me not wanting to even click on a single npc and just kill them all instead. At least that way I get to maintain immersion.
