Yup, that's right, apparently in Dragon Age II, you don't get to create Generic Warden, you instead have "Hawke" as your protagonist.
On the one hand, since you can still apparently choose class, gender, and other important stuff, it sounds like it'll be a lot like "Sheppard" in Mass Effect, which obviously works just fine. Plus it'll allow this character to be voiced and actually react to things, which should add to the immersiveness. (Shush spellcheck, that is a perfectly cromulent word. And ha, spellcheck has fits over "spellcheck," which I guess is supposed to be two words, but anyhow!)
On the other hand, I kinda liked having a vaguely more set character for Mass Effect, and a slightly different character experience for Dragon Age.
Oh well, can't say yet whether this change will be for the better or worse, but at least it's a tidbit of info!