Combat & story is all meaningless for me if the game setting isn't interesting.
Oblivion, generic as it is, at least takes place in a setting with unique & imaginative lore. There's tons of detailed lore-books dealing with geography, religion, racial phylogeny, history... pretty much everything. The same is true for the Dark Eye universe.
I don't doubt BioWare can craft interesting stories/characters & write witty Eddings-like banter, I just hope DA:O doesn't disappoint lore-wise. But from snippets I've read so far on the wiki it doesn't sound very earth-shattering.