I'll be honest here, I'm unsure what all the fuss is about. Sure, combat has been altered slightly but on the PC its still the same basic system. Set your party up, pick targets, send in the tank, keep the healer safe, begin DPS, pause and reassess/reposition every now and then, win fight, move on. I can see how the lack of an auto-attack is a pain but it will be in the full game (apparently) so its a spurious argument. The only real difference I noticed was that some of the animations were a bit more flamboyant and the delay between button press and action was slightly reduced (although you still have to be careful when it comes to last minute potions). The lack of the tactical camera view was also a let down but with that only being the demo I aren't sure if it's in the full game or not (I remember hearing mutterings that it was).
Bows are actually useful now so there's that, my only concern there was that they seemed to have a lot in common with mages due to the whole ranged attack that does area of effect damage and can perform crowd control duties. Time will tell if that is the case though. Mages are always going to be a powerful character, high level mages always are in these games. Warriors still seem to be a simple to use and effective character too so I feel the balance is actually better in this one and each class is more defined, but with only a short period of gameplay that is hard to judge.
As for the conversation options, I can see how not knowing exactly what you'll say is bothersome from an role playing standpoint but if you care about role playing that much just pass it off as it being a second hand version of the events. You can still pick the type of character you are (aggressive, comical, pure as the driven snow etc) so you can justify it as being the little dwarf getting the exact wording wrong but the important details right. Plus, even when you know exactly what is going to be said judging how people react can sometimes be a roll of the dice so it's hardly disastrous.
As for things like the talent trees, well playing a small chunk of the demo left me vaguely unsure how that is going to play out so more time needs to be invested in the full game before I can truly state my opinion. Giving quicker access to a variety of abilities without having to invest heavily in one system seems like it might create more customisable characters though which is a bonus.
tl;dr? Things aren't that different as far as core mechanics though, only the visuals have changed any significant amount. Other things are a bit more wait and see.
