That certainly may be true - all I've seen of the game are screenshots. I don't have the game, after all, and I don't expect to.
I do completely agree with you that in every conceivable way except for graphically (but certainly artistically) Dragon Age I is superior to Dragon Age II. However, the most important reason for that feeling is something which also rules the Witcher out; for me to truly enjoy an RPG, I have to be able to really create my character. I have nothing against interactive storytelling, but it's not the same thing as a roleplaying game. Dragon Age I probably allows the greatest freedom of character creation since the classic Black Isle games - Dragon Age II barely allows enough to satisfy me. I happen to consider the story in Dragon Age II to be much weaker and less compelling than that of Dragon Age II (the whole thing in Kirkwall would be barely a footnote to the Warden Commander, after all), but compared to the problem of your character it's a small one.
I've played Dragon Age all the way through, including all DLCs and Awakening, 4 times. I've only played Dragon Age II once, and I only ever will, because you just can't do anything to make your second character actually different. The problem with integration of character and storyline is that if you play the game a second time it doesn't feel like you're playing a different character, it feels like you're playing the same character - wrong. They may look different, but they have the same story, the same voice, the same family. In the Witcher, they wouldn't even look different, because you aren't making a character there, you're being allowed to play one that the developers already came up with. It may be a good character and a good story, but it isn't your character. And in my opinion, that means it isn't an RPG.
Of course, Dragon Age II has problems all of its own that the Witcher probably doesn't; the dialog wheel is a horribly stupid contrivance which exists only to serve the equally damaging character voice, your companions won't speak to you and can't change their clothing, and the backstory of your character is totally uncompelling compared to your Dragon Age I character, whom I'd rather be playing. And thanks to the character voice, if you don't want to play a hard and badass male character or a fluffy and light female character, you're out of luck - they're going to sound that way no matter what you want.
I've got other problems with the Legacy DLC, but I won't state them here because they amount to spoilers. I'll just say that it would have fit much better with the Warden's story and that it feels like Hawke is robbing the Warden by being there, and the backstory which ties Hawke to the module is tenuous at best. It was a good module, but it didn't fit with Dragon Age II.
Anyway, I've gone on long enough about Dragon Age II. I just get frustrated when I think what the series could have been like, but I'm pretty sure that Dragon Age II means I won't like 3 either. I could go on, but I probably shouldn't.
Random Minecraft screenshot to keep me on topic.