Cities or Inquisition?

They have said there will be a few hub worlds, and have even shown a couple like the Nexus. The rest will be worlds without civilization(with the exception of small outposts and things like that) which makes sense since you land on those worlds in the first place to see if they are suitable places for civilization.

Well, I'm fairly certain the Nexus will be a big hub. Does that count?

If there were just one hub, I would be pretty disappointed. And from what it sounds like the Nexus is very bare bones compared to Mass Effect 1 and 2 and maybe even 3. 

I loved exploring Citadel in ME1 and even in ME2, the banter between NPC's and sometimes even between your team, side quests etc. was so cool, I doubt anything like this will be in MEA, especially after DAI approach.. But I really hope for at least one such place

Yeah, but shooting it up in a mission isn't what some folks are jonesing for.  Its the non-hostile hub world that feels like it has some semblance of life to it.  Mostly you can go to the citadel whenever and wander around freely, getting snippets of amusing conversations, running down some sidequests, etc.  I assume that's what the OP is after.

I haven't heard anything apart from vague comments but I expect we'll have a few settlements we can return to, plus the Nexus and Normandy Tempest.

To be fair to DAI, it still had Haven/Skyhold as the central hub, then Redcliffe, Val Royeaux and the keeps you captured (plus the Winter Palace in Trespasser and your camps in Descent and JoH).

This is pretty much on par with what we had in the ME Trilogy - the Normandy as a base hub and a few other locations we could visit whenever we wanted (Citadel, Feros, Noveria, Illium, Tuchanka and Omega).  ME3 lacked this a bit but that was understandable, given that we were at war the whole game.

Probably the only reason thinks felt a bit different in DAI is that it was the first Bioware game with proper open-world areas.  In DAI, Redcliffe was integrated into the Hinterlands so it probably didn't seem like a hub, yet it was comparable in size to pretty much any hub in the ME Trilogy bar the Citadel.

Yet, people here complain most vehemently and commonly about the "overheard" conversations in ME3 (some of which resulted in quick, 1 item fetch quests elsewhere in the galaxy).  They instead seem to profess to "love" for the almost banter-less Citadel of ME1 (see post right below yours).  There were relatively very few overheard conversations in ME1 (e.g. 2 people in the Citadel Tower that stopped after passing them 2 times) and the dialogue wheels that the player triggered generally just repeated themselves (e.g. Eddie Lang).  I personally liked the extra banter and multi-sectioned conversations that were there in ME3.

Personally, I like hubs that lean towards the smaller end of the scale.  I hate hitting a hub world for the first time and spending hours and hours just running about, getting lost, and listening to a bunch of meaningless conversations (but being able to not tell which ones will become meaningfull and which are indeed meaningless).  I like having a few shops that have significant inventories and that add some items to that inventory after various points in the game (like ME2 and ME3), but don't drop items from the inventory unless I've purchased them (i.e. not like ME1 shops that changed completely after each Level Up or after a few Level Ups... although, in fairness, the upgrades in ME1 leveled with the player and in ME2 and ME3 they just stacked on each other).  I would like it if the shopkeepers would change their dialogue a bit after each separate visit to their shops.  Another reason why I like smaller hubs is that there can be a few more of them... making a trip back to a hub seem easier to justify from a role-playing perspective if it's just a short distance away rather than a jump totally across the galaxy just to pick up something and then a jump right back to a spot very close to where I came from in order to continue the story.

I really liked Noveria. It probably had some of the most entertaining dialogue throughout and a decent amount of options on how to approach certain characters. It was very satisfying if you have a high persuasion Shepard talking shop with Rafael Vargas. 

I'd love to see a big city hub like TW3 Novigrad, maybe not THAT big, but neither as small as Val Royeaux or the Citadel in the trilogy.

In the voice over contest, some thugs mention a 'Capital' , that's my big city hope.

Hopefully way more urban than Inquisition.

It's cool that they showed a port in the VGA trailer, but making a game feel alive is more than just a hub here and another one there.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. The trademark of bio ware games. I loved the moon exploration missions too and am all for more mako type stuff too. But what makes bioware games great are their immersive settlements.