Excellent combat, visuals, sound. Too easy, gets boring. Keybindings very screwed up. Major absence of strategy.
Preliminary review to be edited later:
So I actually pre-ordered this game which is something I never do. I'm also a huge Salvatore fan, and quite frankly this game stays quite true to his legacy. As the gamespot review said, the backstory is pretty weak, although frankly its a lot stronger than many of its competitors. You do feel a bit lost at times and the world of windy trenches does get a little ... trenchy. Of real note is that everything is voiced over. On the flipside, the combat is absolutely excellent, and quite easily the best in the rpg/mmo genre. I'd call it a blend of assassins creed and witcher 2 but improves on both in terms of fluidity and accuracy. Its really good. and well that all combines to give you the feel of a salvatore book. So, ok. Probably the only way to upgrade the action is to make it an mmo and throw you in against players in a pve/pvp environment. The big thing separating it from mmo style combat I think still best emodied in warcraft is the addition of truly huge spell effects. That and witcher style big critter finishing moves. So if it was an mmo with all these goodies we'd give it a 10. All this really goes to its credit tho, gameplay is always most important, period. and this game has it.
Gameplay = 9
Graphics and sound - I think they are absolutely great, slightly cartoony but still feeling really solid, character and monster animations are also excellent. Playing your character really gives you a sense of weight and power
Eye and sound candy = 9.5
World design and backstory - well like I said, its weak, and trenchy. I would frankly throw this in with all that crafting system blah blah blah. Its there. Salvatore books have never been real long on backstory tho. I would say the whole thing is considerably better than rift and perhaps equaling skyrim. Btw I would easily say this game is better than skyrim. Skyrims world design is far superior, but has abysmal gameplay. Anyways, gameplay wins. I've also only played this game for about 13 hours. Maybe it improves. The first part is very much like the night elf starting area in wow. Which is a good thing!
Map and story = 7.5
Bugs and polish. I ran into a keymapping bug within 15 minutes of starting the game. I mean cmon man I've been playing games for 20 years. I know exactly where I want my keys bound, and well... i couldn't. It was really annoying. 12 hours later I ran into a something that would cause a complete screenfreeze shutdown whenever I entered a certain area. It was repeatable. Frankly I'd be playing it right now if it wasn't for that bug. I hit the... blah, maybe I should go play some league of legends point... at that point. There is also a weird inconsistency in readable items you pick up. Like the graphics were thrown in there at a level that is easily 25 years ago. Outside playing the game its absolutely gorgeous, then you pick up this backstory book and you get a text box that looks like it was ported out of wizardry 2. err what. Now frankly I can forgive it since the gameplay is so sweet. But geez man, ppl get really into star wars, warcraft, dragon age backstory and legends stuff. It adds a real pleasant sense of immersion to the game. well anyways.
Bugs and polish = 7
User interface. So its pretty bad, not nearly as bad as skyrim tho. It just feels unnecessarily hard to use and cumbersome. Fortunately absent is the need to quaff 3 potions and eat three deer ribs in the middle of combat. Mid combat healing potion quaffing is definitely there, but the risk of eating a really bad stun combo and getting blasted out of existence still gives it a thrilling sense of urgency. Where warcraft had a perfect UI that you could even customize, this one... just doesn't. Easy thing to improve, but w/e. It absolutely stunned me just how bad skyrim's menu system was. but anyways.
UI = 7
Crafting and other tedious stuff. Well its in there. I guess you can't make a rpg without one. Umm, I know some people really get into this. Maybe they should be setting up shops while the rest of us go slay monsters for them... Where in warcraft crafting created a basis for continued adventuring and yet another excuse to log back in. Here its just... added on. Thankfully there is a very very good system that is already set up for categorizing your zillions of reagents and metal bits you'll undoubtedly accumulate. Unfortunately you often find yourself asking just why you are carrying all this crap around. Bag space is pretty limited and you get overloaded with crap pretty quickly. I did manage to make a few healing potions that came in useful. I'm just gonna skip my review for that part.
Crafting = NR
Character design system. Its absolutely stupendously good. Takes me back to when I solo'd baldur's gate 2 with my fighter/mage/thief. ahh the good ole days. The sense of freedom is just off the charts. I frankly imagine myself replaying this game again and again to try different class combos. If it wasn't for the damn annoying bugs. The shakrams are super cool. The blocking/rolling system is super cool. the power moves are super cool. The spells are super cool. The enemies are super cool.
Well there it is. I'll come back to this review and edit it as I get farther into the game.
First edit: wow! it got better. No bugs at all in another 12 or so hours of playing. Opened up into some great cutscenes and I found myself actually listening carefully to the backstory. I even managed to craft some cool and useful stuff as well. The combat remains extremely good. This is easily the best rpg in 5 years. Score upgraded to a 9.
Second edit: getting really boring, switched to hard (which is the hardest difficulty level) and am breezing through everything. Now almost level 19. Every combat blurs into a boring monotony making it almost identical to the last one. Bosses get easily annihilated with your super power. Crafting seems totally unnecessary. Saw a bit of map variation but not much. Rapidly losing interest in the side quests. This game is not as good as the witcher 2. Still better than skyrim tho. Adult themes would helped. A riding mount would help. Faction MMO pvp would help. At least I haven't encountered any bugs. This is like a poor persons pve server warcraft thats single player. Battling other humans makes life sooo much more interesting. Nightmare difficulty would help. Witcher 2 boss fights own this game even with the bugs witcher 2 had. Dunno what to say. 10 years ago this game would be revolutionary. Now its yawn. tough industry. good luck. doubters might want to wait for an mmo version of this game.