Yeah, that's basically my point. Games can still be great, even with bugs. Ideally, there wouldn't be so many, but if the game is still fun despite all of that, then they're doing good work.
I'm not a huge Obsidian fan or anything like that, but they do make fun games. I do think that if they weren't forced to any deadlines or other side projects, they'd release something at least on par with ME2 or DA:O, at least in the eyes of the public. Maybe they'll get that chance after how well New Vegas did, who knows.
But to stay on topic, I haven't played the game (I did play DA:O), but a bunch of the RPG-playing folks at work are not impressed. I think the consensus is that the Laidlaw probably should have been a bit more flexible in his design decisions. In DA:O, these folks were regretting decisions they made for story purposes, but in this game they've been forced into a narrower story path, and are instead regretting decisions they made because of how it affected gameplay later.