As far as the "doesn't stop hitting on you" angle, when I played through DA 2, Anders hit on Hawke once, but after a rejection he kept to himself. I chose to follow the romantic arc with Merrill (who also never really hit on Hawke except after the flirt-o-meter was shifted to 11 on his part, which I don't think counts). Aveline never flirted (though I have heard that even if you try to flirt with her, it doesn't work out), and Isabella never stopped flirting with Hawke, but this was despite the fact that she was only barely in the "friends" category (and in Isabella's case, incessant flirting would actually fit with the character).
That being said, I agree that the Carver relationship was interesting, and I was disappointed when it came to an abrupt end (though he was completely useless inside my party, so I didn't complain *TOO* much)."









There is a legitimate time and place for movie-style storytelling in videogames. However, that doesn't mean we should rely on it. Ultimately, videogame storytelling will gravtitate to doing things that ONLY videogames can do. Movies don't give you in depth monologues about the thought processes of every character; that's what books are good at. While there are times when videogames SHOULD resort to cutscenes (See: end of Portal 2), this should be done sparingly.
The problem with a talking protagonist is that if they talk too much, they risk saying something that doesn't gel with what the player has in mind, causing a level of dissonance to fall between the character and the player. In Portal and Portal 2, Chell does pretty much what the player would do (or rather, would want to do). However, once the character starts talking, this can break. The simple fact is that there are different types of narrative (and this goes for movies too): story driven, and environment driven. A story driven game would be a game like Dead Space: Extraction, an environment driven game would be something like Bioshock. Dead Space: Extraction is about the story, with talking protagonists with clear wants and fears (as well as hallucinations). Bioshock, ultimately, is about Rapture. The stuff involving the player character is circumstantial at best: The thing that keeps everyone interested is Rapture, and without it, there would be no Bioshock.
This is true of movies as well. Some movies are about plot (okay, most), but others (Fargo, [insert Western here], Moon, Lost in Translation) are about settings. Their progression revolves around the bleakness/lushness/weirdness/interestingness of the setting. While none of these have silent protagonists per-se, you will notice that these types of movies will generally be less dialogue-dense and will spend more time focusing on interesting camera angles and shots of the scenery and the effect that it has on the characters.
Silent characters should not be ubiquitous, but they have their time and place."