So, what did other critics have to say? The aggregate score for Veilguard is currently in the 80s on Metacritic and Open Critic. Here's a roundup so far:
"Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the Game of the Year contender to beat. With a gorgeous, detailed art style, a combat system that works wonders, a story that can really pull your morals in all directions and companions that kick ass"
"Despite some small caveats, playing through a new Dragon Age game after 10 long years has been both personally cathartic and surreal, and likely would have been even if I'd not genuinely largely enjoyed myself throughout. To absolutely butcher the Grey Warden motto in service to my point, if this was all a war for our collective time and money, Dragon Age: The Veilguard feels like a victory."
"The Veilguard nails action combat and exploration and visual grandeur but in a series about defining a hero with morally ambiguous choices, the choices here are too easy to make. In time, The Veilguard will have its own hotly debated legacy within the series, but thank goodness it will at least have one."
"Bioware is back, and while they're not reinventing the wheel here, they've made exactly the game we wanted them to make. An exclusively single-player RPG that is narratively anchored, far more linear, with all the content tailored and organised by skilled designers and without all the "bloat"... What you have here is lean and mean, and it puts Bioware on an exciting trajectory where it's finally possible to see light at the end of the very dark tunnel they've been in for a long, long while. It's not a perfect RPG, but it's... pretty damn good, to say the least."
"The seams and rough edges feel like the result of the development team at least in part rearranging and adapting existing work and ideas to suit the game's vision, but lacking the resources or ability to make them shine as they should. But though it's ultimately held back its shortcomings, the other highs of Dragon Age: The Veilguard - its characters, its storytelling, and its sense of personality - make the game easy to like despite the flaws. The issues may be harder to look past for some, but others will find joy in the things it does do well."
"Dragon Age: The Veilguard isn't quite BioWare back to its absolute best, but it is the most cohesive and emotionally engaging RPG that the studio has delivered since Mass Effect 3. Its shift to crunchy action combat is an improvement over Inquisition's middle-of-the-road approach, and although the game feels a little light on meaningful player choice, the storytelling pulls no punches when it actually matters."
