And suprisingly, the minimum spec is so low I can run it on my useless dell!
Windows XP Minimum Specifications
OS: Windows XP with SP3
CPU: Intel Core 2 (or equivalent) running at 1.4Ghz or greater
AMD X2 (or equivalent) running at 1.8Ghz or greater
RAM: 1GB or more
Video: ATI Radeon X850 128MB or greater
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT 128MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space
http://kotaku.com/5293478/heres-your-dragon-age-origins-pc-specs

guess they're good at making games that scale well....
I've been exited about this, but all the recent previews are making me slightly less excited. I'm a huge Baldur's Gate/planescape/morrowind fan, so this should be up my alley. Hopefully they'll pull it off and it'll be a great game.

The more the previews pan it, the more excited it gets me. Notice how the media wets its pants over "lots of gibs" and "epic battles" all the time, or how dialogue is awesome because it's voice acted. Case in point: the popular critics, like Gayspot, praised Bioshock for it's epic storytelling (there we go with the word 'epic' again). I played through Bioshock, and said "meh", having to force myself to finish the last few levels of the game. The fact that people are saying "meh" because dialog is wordy, and because Bioware didn't show much on the action part, earns my faith more than ever. Remember, Torment didn't have much action in the way of its gameplay too, yet it still has a place in my heart.
When Dragon Age is out, and it does live up to the "Baldur's Gate successor" part of storytelling and narration, mark my words, critics are going to blast it - that is provided Bioware didn't pay them off, of course.

Well, both NWN and NWN2 were both relatively low spec, even if NWN2 had some killer loading times on crappier computers (like mine).
I'm sure they can make something good, but I doubt they can reach the heights of BG again. I'll be buying it though, it will definately be the best of a very lean year for RPGs.

Here's also hoping for a new Baldur's Gate, Planescape Torment, or even Neverwinter Nights (maybe not as great as the others, but I still enjoyed it to bits). It's about time Bioware returned to D&D. I liked Mass Effect as well, and got both Dragen Age and Mass Effect 2 pre-ordered. Being a fan of both fantasy and science fiction, I would say this fall looks rather bright indeed. ;)

that's quite low but will it run smoothly on those specs

That's the minimum specs, not sure how good bioware is with getting those right. Some companys put minimum and you can barely play the game like bethesda with oblivion. The recommended specs are somewhat insane.
Recommended Specifications
CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad 2.4Ghz Processor or equivalent
RAM: 4 GB (Vista) or 2 GB (XP)
Video: ATI 3850 512 MB or greater
NVIDIA 8800GTS 512 MB or greater
DVD ROM (Physical copy)
20 GB HD space

No. Their marketing, and subsequent attitude about complaints regarding it, has convinced me that this is not the game I'm looking for.

Yeah, I was really surprised by that. I'm still hopeful the game will turn out well, but the marketing has certainly given me doubts.

Those recommended specs are outrageous! I will be interested to see how scalable this engine really is. Mass Effect ran quite well on reasonable systems, so it would be stupid if Dragon Age did not continue this trend. Hopefully this is not one of those games where the "minimum" specs should actually be closer to the recommended to be even remotely playable. Of course, good luck waiting for a demo to see how well it runs before coughing up the dough; BioWare seems to despise demos.
With recommended specs like that becoming the norm for games that aren't Crysis, it's clear that this is the sunset of DirectX 9, where it starts to really show its weaknesses. Hopefully, once Windows 7 takes off developers will start moving towards DX11, which allows better visuals while actually running faster (seriously); AMD's tessellation demonstration shows this in effect--the head in this video is a single, pre-defined model, but the GPU can dramatically alter the level of detail simply by adding or removing additional polygons placed precisely and automatically using mathematical calculations. All of this results in savings in RAM use and model/texture swapping.

Summarize.

Behold the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SuJ5T9sfAA
The day after announcing the trailer, Chris Priestly added:
"If you're not tough enough to handle our game, turn back now."
When I posted in the thread that I thought a trailer showing nothing but noncontextualized violence (and an awkward sex scene) showed such poor judgment that I was now going to wait until quite some time after release to even possibly buy it, the lead writer responded:
"That's a good idea, anyhow... unless the suggestion is that it would be better to run out and buy a game that might not be good just because they hadn't released a trailer at some point that you didn't like?
By all means wait until release and see what you hear. Or wait until the next trailer or piece of PR is released which says something that is much more palatable to you -- which is much more likely, as we've still got a number of months left to go."
So the plan is to lure the God of War crowd, then show me something shiny to make me completely forget about it.
And Nick Breckon from Shacknews was repulsed by lead designer Mike Laidlaw's presentation at E3 in which he seemed like someone who needs more contact with people outside the office:
"The presentation began with lead designer Mike Laidlaw spending ten minutes explaining how players can have sex in the game. There was no lead-up to this segment, mind you. This was the headline topic" ( http://www.shacknews.com/featuredarticle.x?id=1141 ).
In summary, they don't feel they need people like me because they assume we'll buy it anyway, and on top of that seem to be offended that we draw conclusions about the game from the marketing they choose to represent it. Even if it is similar to BG2, I'm not sure Bioware at this point has any stories to tell that I'm interested in experiencing given the taste and judgment currently on display.

I'm buying it.
Did EA/Bioware announce that there's no nasty DRM in it?

Yes they did.
That is pretty shitty, Syme, and I see what you mean about all the marketing junk. BioWare should know better -- they've already got heaps of fans that just want a great game with no marketing bullshit.
Still, about the trailer, I do give the benefit of the doubt you misinterpreted -- personally I enjoyed it (though I do think the sex was kind of lame, like 'hey we're the guys that do sex scenes in games, remember?)...I didn't really analyze it, and maybe neither did they. Maybe that's all he means -- it shouldn't be such a big deal.