Dragon Age 2 - Interviews @ Dragon Age Wiki

Ausir managed to catch up with Mike Laidlaw and Fernando Melo for two separate interviews on Dragon Age 2.  Laidlaw explains they are moving away from linear skill chains, which is good news:

Can you tell us more about the changes to the character development system?

Sure. The one that we showcased today was that we moved away from the idea of ability chains. You had to pick ability 1 to get ability 2, and so on, and so forth. We changed it into a tree, so there are multiple paths. You can build your character without feeling that you have to pick abilities you don’t really want. Beyond that, you can also do upgrades. If you are particularly fond of, say, fireball, you can actually enhance it, to make it more powerful, more effective. You can make a character that is very specialized or one that is a more broad-ranged generalist. Each of these is a valid style of playing.

The conversation with Fernando Melo focuses on his area of DLC, with news of more DA:O stuff to come but here's a snip on the dialogue:

Can you tell us more about the changes in Dragon Age 2 that were influenced by the Mass Effect series?

Well, probably the closest one will be the conversation wheel. I think it was something that we saw was very successful in Mass Effect, it was a great mechanic to use, we wanted to use that. One of the things that we saw is that it’s not always obvious, not only in Mass Effect, but in other games that use similar conversation systems, even in Dragon Age: Origins at times, what the tone, intent of the line is based on just the text of the option. So we introduced the icons that tell you what tone you should expect from the line. The player will also play an integral part in shaping Hawke, the hero of Dragon Age 2. If you’re constantly picking a sarcastic response, diplomatic response, aggressive response, over the course of the game, when you meet a character and make an introduction even before you actually have any choices in dialogue or if you’re in the middle of combat and he’s doing his combat call-outs, all of this will start to reflect the character you’re making Hawke to be. It’s a very clever system and I think people will feel, along with the player voice, that these are going to add a lot of character to Hawke.

I think the way we make games hasn’t changed. We’re trying to evolve Dragon Age a little bit, not radically change it. There’s a lot of misconceptions in terms of the changes we’re introducing. You’ve had a chance to see the game now, and you realized that the changes are quite subtle. The players who played Origins are going to feel at home. The BioWare style of gameplay is very much present.