Hopefully it will at least be playable at release. No DRM and being a single player game should help that, but I'm still always skeptical for any new game.

After playing the Witcher 1 and watching streams of the Witcher 2, yeah, the movement around the environment was pretty clunky. Though they have finally added in the ability to jump in W3 so hopefully the terrain will feel more open and explorable now.

For video card I'm thinking about saving up for the GTX 970 or 980 since you get the game free with those... Or would I be able to save some money and still get good results spending something like $150 on a new card? I was searching for video card reviews and found this list: http://daydull.com/reviews/the-witcher-3-video-card-recommendation-list-review-of-the-best-value-and-performance-under-150-200-250-300-etc/ Would I be able to play in 1080p and get smooth framerates with that R9 270x?

Here's the guide I just used to buy a video card for Titanfall. http://daydull.com/tips-tutorials/titanfall-video-card-recommendation-list-review-of-the-best-value-for-your-budget-under-100-150-200-250-300/

It lists all the price ranges and the best value card at each budget level and has the best store deals for specific models. And yeah I think another post mentioned this, but if you have something like a Dell computer with limited space and probably not a great power supply, the 750 ti would likely be the way to go. Can't wait to see Nvidias next release of a more powerful card that uses the Maxwell chipset, but I bet litecoin miners are going to cause the price of it to skyrocket anyway.

Games will always want to have both single and multiplayer as a bullet point to help sales. Sometimes if the single player game is complete, they have all the art and sound assets ready to go and it might not take a very long time to whip up a multiplayer mode. Just put up some walls to block off part of a level, use weapons that are already in game, do a fast balance attempt, bring the netcode over from some other game thats already done, blam. Maybe an extra 1% of resources from some employees that had finished their other work ahead of schedule.

I don't have a problem with it as long as they are clear on what the game is at start and it doesn't affect the real focus of the game. (And we as consumers need to be careful on preorders to not get fooled).

As far as those criticisms go, I think only the combat being mediocre is true.

For the rest you have to be willing to let yourself be immersed in the world or the game will seem slow and boring. Its like watching a long epic movie. If you aren't immersed in the world its going to be a torture of wasted time as you don't care about anything that happens. Meanwhile there's someone two seats over in the theater that gets very invested in the character and story and loves the movie.

Your willingness to be immersed could be affected on a subconscious level. Perhaps you got sick of hearing about the game, someone whose opinion you respect was negative about it, or you were just not in a slow story mood when you first tried playing. First impressions mean a lot.