I like to be fully transparent when I describe things so people don't come back and say I misled them. I haven't done many sidequests personally. I stated that from several reviewers I've spoken to that are deep in the game, more than myself, sidequests come into their own later and some have multiple quest lines that can span multiple areas/planets.
I also described a few side activities on the very first prologue planet that *felt* more fleshed out to me as opposed to DAI's fetch quests because they actually had narration by the characters and you learn/investigate some interesting things that provide neat info vs "Collect 10 ram hides for the soldier" in DAI for example.
Some more examples: I've also been going through a murder mystery on the Nexus that spanned multiple conversations with the Nexus director, then a witness, the suspect's wife, etc and that's now asking me to go to Eos to find and investigate the remains.
Also been following up leads on someone sabotaging electrical grids on the Nexus and now I have to find out what's going on and why.
These things feel more compelling to me than a lot of the junk in DAI lol.
There's still the "tasks" that simpler in nature. One injured soldier asked if I could place a pendant next to where he lost his brother on a planet, but even that felt more fleshed out than DAI 'sidequests'. I'm enjoying them.
So I can only speak for myself. Hope that helps