The halflings and gnomes look great to me, just as gnomes. Yeah, they're a bit alien, I suppose but I like that. It'd just be boring to me if they were merely short humans and elves.
If anything, I'd have something to say about the Dwarves. When discussing body types - making a male Dwarf with this with anything under 17 STR feels wrong. Then again, if I'm a male Dwarf, I'm applying hammers to faces whist screaming all manner of things regarding grudges and books, so that's fine, I guess. In fact, Oath of Vengeance, and go all Belegar, yup. Totally seeing that. I'm now at twelve playthroughs.
Dwarf females are excellent; they were from the get-go. I'm actually leaning towards a Scout Harding-esque ranger because of it, and now you can add freckles to do just that. Good stuff. Them having beards is awesome. I wouldn't use it per se, but it's fun that you can. This is actually the first game I know that lets you. Dragon Age didn't, Neverwinter Nights didn't, it makes so much sense.
Oh, and whilst on hair: The added hairstyles across the board look *awesome*. Absolutely gorgeous, with all the coloring options and everything; really good stuff.
The heterochromia thing wouldn't be something I'd miss, but in this game in particular it makes so much sense, what with the tadpole lurking behind one eye. Definitely using it.
