I know the feeling you're talking about dte, and often have it about games these days. It's hard to believe one may actually be fun sometimes--I have about ten games waiting for me to get up the enthusiasm to play them, and they all are "good" games....but I think you would enjoy The Witcher.
The Witcher is a good balance between dialogue heavy and combat oriented. A great deal of the game is not combat-- there is map-mowing and exploration for sure, but finding and resolving quests, leveling & distributing your skills, tinkering around with potions, and so forth takes up at least as much time--in fact, at times I just had to stop talking and go find something to kill.
Until the last act, you can set your own pace pretty much. Then it gets more rigid, but it goes fast. I very seldom finish games--it takes real involvement to get me to the end screens, but I had no moments of disconnection with TW.
As far as actual combat, it's not much like Gothic, to my mind--I just used the easy setting and breezed through it, and I'm not much of a twitch gamer either.
As Jabberwocky says, if anything, it's almost a turnbased feel as you get the timing down, sort of an automated turn-based, if you will.
which after the first act, is pretty much second nature. And while it's not as grind oriented as an action rpg, the maps are teeming with evil creatures which must be removed, and the carnage will level you at quite reasonable intervals. The skill system for leveling and character development is very well done and intuitive mostly.
Anyway, it's hard to come at this game without a lot of preconceived notions after all the hoopla, so I understand that it may have to wait. I liked this game the most since Might & Magic VII though, and that's really more my perfect game than PS:T, (even though that's high on my lists as well)--if that tells you anything.