Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening Previews

Before plowing headfirst into another weekend, I thought I'd round up a couple more hands-on previews of Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening that trickled onto the web earlier today.

We'll start off at Giant Bomb:
The Wardens won't be the only ones gathering new forces in Awakening, though. Something is definitely amiss in Darkspawn HQ, with some freakish new creatures lurking in the depths beyond the Dwarven city of Orzammar. In the brief time I had with the game, I encountered The Children milling about in the Deep Roads. These things are foul. Do you remember how nasty the Broodmother was in Origins? Consider her a beauty queen when imaging the grotesque nature of The Children. They appear to evolve in stages, and I mostly encountered forms akin to slimy grubs, but with faces. Nobody wants to see that, especially when they are overpowering you and eating your head. A bit less creepy, but equally intriguing, are the sentient Darkspawn. The last thing the world needs are Darkspawn questioning their own existence, especially when the answers to those questions usually involve more efficient ways to kill you. If you've kept up with some of the Dragon Age fiction in the books, you'll already be familiar with the Architect, the thinking man's Darkspawn, and he'll definitely be playing a role in Awakening, though what that role is remains to be discovered.

And then proceed to GayGamer for another sampling:
My actual hands on time with the game was brief and hindered a bit by the fact that it was demoed on the PC. As you well know, I am a rotten keyboard and mouse gamer and am much more at home with a controller in my hand. But despite some small bumps, I was able to have some battles and play into the saved game they had ready for me. Not a whole lot to report as far as gameplay goes, it was really more of the same except for some new and interesting spells for my magic user. But this isn't a bad thing. Why fix what's not broken? I did like the small bit of the plot I experienced, but I don't want to give away to much of what I saw. Suffice it to say this is going to be a great follow up to the original.