And by that I am NOT referring to the actual written and spoken lines of dialogue in the game. There seems to be a general consensus that the dialogue in DA:O rocks, and I agree.
 
However it seems that a lot of people dislike the fact that you play as a 'mute' character in that your character doesn't actually speak. I am curious as to why this is. People (myself included) love Fallout 3 and Oblivion (well, I only like Oblivion) and neither of those games has SPOKEN dialogue from the main character. I understand that they are 1st person perspective so that may be a reason as to why. Still, why not hate on that as well? The main reason these games lack spoken dialogue is because there is so much of it. So discuss:
* Do you hate it? Why? Why not?
* Is it because Mass Effect set the bar so high with that stuff we expect Bioware to back it up?
* Is it the perspective of the game and the fact that you are looking at your character not speaking? (Despite the fact that he/she 'says' their line when you select it?)
 
Cheers

well, mass effect did set the bar high in terms of presentation, but im pretty sure the extra time and resources spent recording dialog for all sopken lines for the mc, both male and female took alot of resources and helped contribute to the game's short length. I prefer having a much longer game, imo.

Well if you don't like the voice of the character then it could kill the experience for you. 
 
It's a problem thats mainly present in RPGs.

I do not understand this thread at all. You are talking about why the hate for the dialogue in DA:O, but then say that when referring to dialogue you aren't referring to any written, or spoken dialogue in the game. What dialogue are you referring to then? I wasn't bothered by any of the dialogue in DA:O. Your character doesn't speak, because he/she is supposed to be you. The response to a section of dialogue is stated and given when you click on it, which I think makes for a more active experience. While I think ME had better dialogue, I also think ME had a more interesting cast of characters and more interesting situations in its story pertaining to the those characters, which lends to more interesting dialogue. I do think Shepard speaking enhanced the experience, but at the same time it bugged me that the choices you picked in the dialogue trees were just to determine the response he/she gave and weren't the actual response.  Also, many of said choices gave the same or very, very, very similar responses, which made them feel pointless.
 
I should also point out that I grew up with the silent protagonist. I remember a time where the most dialogue you got in a game was Toad thanking you for saving him and telling you the princess was in another castle, which probably has a lot to do with why I'm not bothered by a lack of voice acting.

I haven't even played DA:O yet, though I do have it and intend to play it soon (finishing Baldur's Gate II TOB first).  I can tell you that while Baldur's gate is awesome, Mass Effect is one of my favorite games ever and one of the defining parts of that game for me was that Shephard was a great character, and one of the largest reasons that he was a great character was that he had spoken dialogue (excellent at that).  So in my opinion, the spoken dialogue of the protagonist adds a lot to the experience though I'm sure it does take a lot of resources - but so does every other character that is voiced.
 
And I get the point that the dialogue choice didn't always affect what was spoken, but even in older games (like Baldur's Gate), a lot of times you will still get the same response from an NPC regardless of which dialogue choice you pick.  It's a Bioware thing I guess.

The weird thing is that you were able to select a voice during your character creation, yet I never heard my character speak once. I wonder if main character speech got cut out of the game at some point.

I just started playing the game this sunday and liking it so far, I noted that the main character doesn't speak but it doesn't really bother me. I actually think that it would get annoying if, after I read all the lines and decided which one to pick, the character would also say it. I mean, I've already heard it probably twice in my head, let's get on with the conversation already! 
 
Since I try to play the character as if he was me I think it's easier for me to place myself in that role if I have to "fill in the blanks" myself. 
 
So yeah I actually prefer it this way.

The silent protagonist in the game does bug me a bit since the game asks me to pick a voice when I created my character.  I would have preferred that there was just one voice for my character and have an actress (or actor) say the lines like in Mass Effect.  Get Jennifer Hale and Nolan North to do the work and it will further flesh out the character.  The rest of the characters I think are very well done.  So, I have no complaints about the dialog, but I would have preferred a voiced hero character. I know she speaks when I click on a loot item or give her a command, but that's not what I was really expecting.  Mass Effect spoiled me for the fully vocalized dialog.  
 
I wonder what route Star Wars: The Old Republic will take?  It's been a while since I watched the 20 minute walk-through so I don't remember how things worked.

Not that I have a problem with it, but if you have a cast of characters with so much of their own personality, and they're all being lead by a guy that just stands there and stares at everything, It's a bit odd. 

"    I wonder what route Star Wars: The Old Republic will take?  It's been a while since I watched the 20 minute walk-through so I don't remember how things worked. "

Im a Baldurs Gate vetren. The lack of  "I must rest for us to continue" and "Jump On my Sword Villainy! I wont be so gentle" threw me off balance in DA:O. But I didnt mind the muteness of the charecter, kinda wished he could have said a couple of line (ala my favourite Morrigan romance) but Twas no biggie.

I don't mind the silent protagonist at all.

The reason is fairly simple, way too many voices to record.  Mass Effect had two recording to do Shepherd, male and female.  Now imagine DA:O and how many actors would need be cast.  You'll want one elf, one dwarf and one human for sure and both sexes at that and so you're up to 6.  Now you'd want Dwarf nobles and commoner to sound different so thats another 2.  The city elf and Dhalish probably would sound somwwhat different so that could be another 2.  And  you would want the mage separate from the regular human so add another 2.  That's 12 actors, 11 of which most players won't even hear and in most cases the player will just skip over anyway after choosing their response.  

"

Not that I have a problem with it, but if you have a cast of characters with so much of their own personality, and they're all being lead by a guy that just stands there and stares at everything, It's a bit odd. 

"

I don't outright hate the fact that my character doesn't speak, but it did bother me a little. I felt a bit of a disconnect to the world when everyone else is speaking and my character is just sort of nodding along. I guess I don't really see the characters I create or play in RPGs as "me" as much as just "my character" in that world.
 
That being said I understand perfectly well why they didn't do it, I mean the task would be monumental with all the different voices and dialog options.

Sometimes when fighting my character says something dumb like "Is it just me, or do you actually think you have a chance!?" or if I win, he yells "EXCELLENT!"

DA : O has much more speech than Mass Effect.  Even the party NPC to NPC conversations are far more varied and dynamic than those of Mass Effect which only really happened in lifts on the Citadel.
 
Am I missing something or this thread confusing?

Well I think people see it as a huge step in the wrong direction from Bioware by suddenly making the main character mute again. Mass Effect really did set a high bar with Shepard, but there's no reason why they couldn't have found some way to implement a voice into the main character of DA:O.

" Well I think people see it as a huge step in the wrong direction from Bioware by suddenly making the main character mute again. Mass Effect really did set a high bar with Shepard, but there's no reason why they couldn't have found some way to implement a voice into the main character of DA:O. "

Mass Effect dialog system works for what it tries to do.  Dragon Age's dialog system works for what it tries to do, even though it can feel like a step backwards. 
 
I like the breadth of choices in DA:O and how not all of the dialog options scream out "evil" or "good" alignment.  There's the illusion of grey area in the way you can influence outcomes, and that was pretty neat. 
 
I can also live with the technical and practical limitations of not being to hear your own character speak.  3 races, 2 sexes, 3 classes and 6 origin stories. You wouldn't want a cookie-cutter voice for each variation and you sure as hell wouldn't want to be the audio guy at BioWare in charge of recording all that dialog!

Having played through DA:O multiple times now because as a role-playing game, it makes perfect sense. 
 
In Dragon Age, you own the character and in many games like this (Fallout 3 and Oblivion being good examples) forcing a voice upon the player would tarnish the experience should it not live up to your personal vision of the character. In Mass Effect, you're playing as Shepard, a character that, despite character creation, you don't own. You can make Shepard black, white, male, female, but Shepard is not your creation so applying a voice to Shepard doesn't effect the experience, much like how you never think twice about the voice acting in games like Final Fantasy XII or Kingdom Hearts. 

As has been said, the sheer amount of VA required for this would be mind boggling - and would most definately split the console versions onto multiple disks.  I do like that they went the old school with the Baldur's Gate/Neverwinter Nights voice selection, it only seems weird now that most NPCs are fully voiced that your protaganist is not so.
 
I don't mind the lack of protaganist voice in Dragon Age, I am far more impressed that they actually have different VAs and voices based on your race - that I did not expect.
 
The alternative I guess would be like Jedi Academy - you could choose your gender and race in that game, but there was just one male and one female VA.  Playing as a Rodian with a clear english voice just felt weird, and that game had waaaay less dialog than Dragon Age.

Tis not such a problem because of how great the rest of the voice acting is

I loved Morrigan's voice it reminded me of a teacher i used to have a crush on, but thats a totally different story