It looks hard juggling all those different party members around, and I hear it's so overwhelming that pausing is a must.  KOTOR is the only game I've played that had party members and pausing, but it was pretty relaxed.  Can this game be played casually at all, or do you have to try your hardest just to survive through an average fight?

It is pretty difficult. The cool part is that you can use the sliders for difficulty when you want to. A good tip is to drop a nuke with a mage before opening a door. the pacing of the game is pretty frantic though. You can totally pause game play but it doesn't let you queue actions up like in KOTOR. Although it has a pretty neat system called tactics where you can structure what a party member will do and when they do it. If you have ever played Guild Wars with heroes, you will have a good idea of how to play DA:O.

It's a breeze on PC, no idea about the console version.

Yeah, the combat's pretty tough. I know it requires my full attention, and even when you feel like you're at the top of your game you won't always pull through on every fight. Admittedly, that all goes toward the feeling of satisfaction after surviving... 

Can you save whenever you want?  and is the combat challenging in a fun sort of way or a cheap sort of way?

You definately want to make use of the Tactics for each of your party members.
Or at the very least, setup one of the standard fighting styles for the type of character he/she is
 ie... scrapper, defender, archer, healer, etc
 
Personally I found almost every fight difficult until I hit level 12 or so. I was constantly pausing & assessing the battle. I'm not sure if that's because I had learned better abilities by that point, or if I simply got a better grasp of the combat system & what works well. I believe it was mostly the latter.
 
I find that if you set good tactics for your warrior & rogue party members, then they can hold their own for the most part. Meanwhile you can focus on controlling your mage/healer character(s). If you do that I find most battles require very little pausing/micro-managing.

" Can you save whenever you want?  and is the combat challenging in a fun sort of way or a cheap sort of way? "

" It looks hard juggling all those different party members around, and I hear it's so overwhelming that pausing is a must.  KOTOR is the only game I've played that had party members and pausing, but it was pretty relaxed.  Can this game be played casually at all, or do you have to try your hardest just to survive through an average fight? "

" It is pretty difficult. The cool part is that you can use the sliders for difficulty when you want to. A good tip is to drop a nuke with a mage before opening a door. the pacing of the game is pretty frantic though. You can totally pause game play but it doesn't let you queue actions up like in KOTOR. Although it has a pretty neat system called tactics where you can structure what a party member will do and when they do it. If you have ever played Guild Wars with heroes, you will have a good idea of how to play DA:O. "

Huge suggestion. When you first start the game, set it to easy. It'll let you get a feel for what each character and class is good for and help you grip the basics of the genre. That's what I did. I had never played a game like this ever before Dragon Age and made the mistake of keeping it on normal at first. When a certain ogre kicked my ass countless times, I took a blow to my ego and set it to easy. Ten hours later and normal is manageable for me. It could help you too.

Well this is a very hard decision because I'm not sure if I'll like that sort of gameplay.  I think I will get it though if I can lower the difficulty.  Thanks for the comments.

I found it easy on the pc version with all those interface and stuff, I still have no idea how this game could be played on consoles. I will have to see the video review again for a reminder.

I've been playing the console version recently, and you get used to it. The thing is, you often cannot just rush into combat and expect to have good results, so it's best to go into every battle expecting it to be difficult (that doesn't mean it will be, but it'll be less frustrating if you don't let your guard up). You'll also have to pause a lot and do a little hand-holding with the A.I.
 
Health poultices and healing spells are necessary, as well.

I like to micro-manage so i pause often and control everything my party does. The harder the difficulty, the more it requires micromanagement.

I played through it on Medium. Some of the battles were tough and I made it through with just one or two guys alive. It really pays to pause frequently, although most of the tough battles are optional.