imo the DU romance is easy the best written storyline of the game with all the others being "do this and i'll bed you" the DU is the only one that they [your romance] gets to save you from your shit as much as you help them
On the other hand, if you don't have a romance going, the writing shows its weakness again. Instead of a romance partner the character with highest approval is cast in a certain scene. And since approval is only a metric of how much the companion likes my character, but does not reflect whether my character likes them... Well, that scene just felt silly.
By comparison, nowhere in my Gale origin run did I feel that I need to romance a companion in order for the story to work.
On a side note, you can lean into evil all you want, and still change your mind last minute in the dark urge quest line, and you will get treated as a hero afterwards. Everyone collectively forgets what happened before. Imo Shadowheart's origin story handles the same concept much better.
