I was using 'race' in the sense of species, not colour - ie. human/dwarf/elf, not black/white/whatever.

AFAIK, there has been no indication that Hawke will be a specific colour or sex (a pre-rendered trailer starring a white, male Hawke has been released recently, of course, but DA:O had the player represented by a similarly white, male warrior in its cinematic trailers) so black women will hopefully be as well served by DA2 as they were by DA2 - or better, if really dark skins are available this time.

Oh goodness, what a load of hysteria over nothing.

Firstly, claiming that restricting the player to a single race turns the game into something other than an RPG is to disregard some of the greatest examples of that genre ever made, namely Planescape and the first two Fallout games.

Secondly, the decision to go with Hawke is not so much a change in direction as a focusing and consolidation of what they did in DA:O. When you play as a dwarven noble your character is born into a specific family with specific allies and enemies. Likewise, if you plump for a down-at-heel elf, you're not playing just any Alienage civilian, you're playing a specific elf with a pre-written father, bride and cousin.

That's exactly what's happening here. From what I can tell, there's no functional difference between playing a specific (albeit unnamed) human with a pre-existing family and background in DA:O and playing as Hawke with his/her family and background in DA2. Oh, except being able to change the character's name. Horror!

And since - origin stories aside - the differences between the various races' stories in DA:O were entirely superficial, it's not like we're losing a whole lot there.

A bigger concern would be removing the option to choose warrior/rogue/mage character classes, but I don't think there's been any indication of that yet.