Well, firstly, I will need to know what Data Protection Scam BiowarEA is planing to force upon their buyers this time round. If it is anything like what they using for Spore and Mass Effect they can keep the crap - I'm not paying full price for a rental copy, in fact I would probably not pay anything for it as that would support something I loath. Anyway, about the romances, I would have to agree that most CRPGs have extraordinarily bad ones; although this does not have to be the case. As another poster pointed out already, there are plenty -well, at least a handful- of third-party modifications that contain well written and constructed trysts and relationships. That said, I would not expect major game studios to produce any unless the overbearing hype about virtual sex -even if there is either none directly featured in the game or "on camera"- calms down among the social conservatives and liberals who are trying to get on the "games are evil" bandwagon.