I feel like the topic "a post Mass Effect 2 Bioware game" is very apt for this game. It seems like all the one-upping that Bioware has done over the years, trying to make each RPG they make better than the last, has finally caught up with them.
 
I'm going to get slightly spoiler-y here, so if you care about Awakening's story and haven't already played a good amount of it yet, please turn away now.
 
Okay. What sticks out immediately, and is perhaps the biggest waste of an opportunity that Awakening has to offer, lies in the fact that the characters you put through the joining has little to no impact on what happens. The worst part is that there's only one character that I know of that will die in the joining (Mhari, the first character you happen to meet). I actually sort of blame the gaming press for my opinion of this matter, as I was led to believe through very specific references that the decision (or non-decision, as you don't have a choice in the case of most of the characters) to put NPCs through the joining was a big part of the expansion pack, and that there would be severe consquences. Like I said, one character (that I know of) dies, and that isn't a choice.  
 
Considering that if you're playing the "evil" character (read: moron) who turns down the offer for NPCs to even join your party, they'll simply leave and you won't see them again, how they could just forego the option of them dying in the joining, and thus make the whole impact of the situation you're in meaningless, just plain sucks. I understand that having characters die can leave a significant hole in your party from a gameplay perspective, but believe me, they weren't scared of leaving you vulnerable in the original game. You could lose Wynne very easily, and turn down or have Morrigan leave your party at any moment, and you'd be entirely without a mage. Maybe they heard people's problems with that aspect and decided to change it, but I think it's a change for the worse. My big draw to Bioware's storytelling as of late has been to the idea that the choices you make throughout the game have a lasting and meaningful impact.
 
That said, there are definitely some later choices you'll make that will change the course of the late game drastically; though some of those seem a little too obvious, sort of like the decision in Mass Effect 2 (again, spoilers) to upgrade the armaments of your ship. If you don't do it, people will die. It's a little too binary of a decision that I think caters too much to the casual player who doesn't care one iota for the story. "Hey, you should upgrade these walls!" "No, I'm not going to." Gee, I wonder where that decision could lead? It allowed me to predict exactly how the ending to the game would play out, and I already knew I was choosing the right decision to stay and defend Amaranthine before it was even offered to me.
 
I just feel like for as many steps forward  Bioware has taken the RPG genre with its decision-based, dynamic storytelling, they haven't pushed the envelope far enough. I don't know if it's that they're catering to the more simplistic-minded game enthusiast crowd, or if they feel like it's just too difficult coding around the results of each decision, but in this case, I don't think it's the latter. Like I said, you already have the option of turning away certain party members. You may as well have the option of having them die permanently. The other option I see is that they just didn't have much time. After all, Awakening had a pretty quick turnaround in terms of development time to game content. But the end result is that the whole thing just feels a little sloppy, even overlooking the many technical issues I had with the title.
 
Before this comes off looking too negative, I  still greatly enjoyed the expansion pack (especially two fights in particular), and I still think Bioware makes the best role playing games in the industry, bar-none. My critical view only comes from the fact that they seem to be the company trying to push the envelope the most, and I've come to expect a lot from them.

" Spoiler-y?...Sorry, still too much for me to delve any deeper into your post ;P lol  I assume the jist is that Awakening has now highlighted at how dated Dragon Age is already becoming? "

Just finished the expansion, and I tend to agree with your points.  But, I don't attribute the less-of-a-step-forward feeling of this expansion to BioWare not pushing the envelope enough.  Dragon Age itself pushes the envelope so far, and this expansion is built upon that platform.  I think the feeling I'm getting is mostly due to technical/gameplay issues.  If BioWare had executed this exact game without the gameplay issues, I don't think we'd be having this discussion.
 
For instance, I chose to do the Wending Wood last and hence got Velanna last.  As far as I could tell, there was no way for me to take Velanna through the Joining.  As soon as I got back to Vigil's Keep from the mines, Seneschal Varel would not take any more recruits through the joining.  The only dialogue option with him was to start the final battle.  From what I could tell of the ending, this affected Velanna's Epilogue (the fact that she didn't go through the Joining).
  
This is just one of about 20 major flaws in gameplay I experienced. 
 
I will iterate as you did that I thoroughly enjoyed this expansion and am being nit-picky.  It's a B+ in my book, and would have been an A+ but for the technical issues.

The big bad thing for me was you can't talk to your party member like normal.
thus making them not very deep

" The big bad thing for me was you can't talk to your party member like normal. thus making them not very deep "

I know exactly what you mean. The thing that sort of wrecked part of the game for me was the fact that NPC interactions were so limited. Basically you can only talk to party members during the certain points of the story. It felt like the game was sent back a few years to be honest. I guess we will just have to wait for dragon age 2 before we are completely satisified like we were with the original.

My only beef with the game was it's difficulty. Played on the same difficulty as Dragon Age: Origins, it was way too easy. 
 
They should have balanced it out a bit more.

" I know exactly what you mean. The thing that sort of wrecked part of the game for me was the fact that NPC interactions were so limited. Basically you can only talk to party members during the certain points of the story. It felt like the game was sent back a few years to be honest. I guess we will just have to wait for dragon age 2 before we are completely satisified like we were with the original. "

In terms of decisions, I was kinda bummed about that decision right near the end

What disappoints me is the fact that it's expensive. The Awakening DLC.

Oh yeah, this game was way too easy on Normal. I had an imported level 21 mage from the DA:O and I had to change the difficulty to Hard midway through the first main plot mission. I was just tearing through dudes without any effort. By the end of the game I kinda wished that I had turned it all the way to Nightmare. I did still manage to have some fairly intense battles through the story.
 
One thing I really liked was that they close the book on your character at the end. This'll give them (and us) a clean slate for the next expansion. I mean it would've been fairly insane if I had gotten to import my now level 31 mage again.

"

In terms of decisions, I was kinda bummed about that decision right near the end

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

The whole Architect alliance choice seemed like the ME2 Legion loyalty mission choice all over again

"

I thought Awakening was absolutely fantastic, and integrated into the fiction of Dragon Age really well (if you're willing to look past the questionable aspect of the Character Import feature). It wasn't a pure Dragon Age experience, but it's an expansion pack, so I wasn't really expecting that. I think the new characters you meet are really cool, and they made a good choice with the returning party member. The gameplay additions are super tight, it's a good length at about 25% of the length of the full game, the dialogue is excellent as usual, the new locations are sweet as hell, and it presents some really fascinating possibilities for Dragon Age 2. Cannot recommend it highly enough for people who like Dragon Age.
 
Then again, I thought Return to Ostagar was a good DLC add-on, so maybe I'm a bit biased when it comes to Dragon Age. But whatever, DA:O is totally amazing.

" ... Then again, I thought Return to Ostagar was a good DLC add-on, so maybe I'm a bit biased when it comes to Dragon Age. But whatever, DA:O is totally amazing. "

@Abyssfull

" @ricetopher said:

"

In terms of decisions, I was kinda bummed about that decision right near the end

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

The whole Architect alliance choice seemed like the ME2 Legion loyalty mission choice all over again

"

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

The whole darkspawn civil war reminded me of ME2 aswell, with the revealment of not all Geth acting as your enemy.

"