The art direction in DA1 was just on the right side of meh in some respects and better in others, the clothing was awful, the armour not so bad.
It did however, have awesome tunnels you could fight in, half-decent graphics, and loads of ways to eviscerate your opponents. This mitigated the soppy NPCs but if you went for Sten, the Dog and the Golem it wasn't too bad at all.
DA2 is an actiony, cartoony console game with JRPG-influenced art direction for Da Kidz. It's RPG lite. It's a step away from DA1, which was ironic given the McBio was just beginning to redeem itself. Oh well, it will shift lots of units.