Thanks to the restricted freedom and other nuisances a very mediocre game...
Graphics 8/10
At highest settings the graphics look up-to-date, even wonderful at some places. Unfortunately their are very repetitive. While the forests look nice at first, after you enter the third area which also consists of the same looking forest, you grow bored. The main goal the new developers had were to create a bug free game and graphics, which they ultimately achieved, at least when compared to the buggy mess that was Gothic 3. Unfortunately in focusing too much of bug free graphics, they forgot what made gothic great, freedom.
Sound 6/10
The tagline for sounds in gothic 4 is, average. I cannot remember a single tune which played in it, despite finishing it mere days ago. Than again I was not unnerved by the sounds when I played it.
Story 3/10
Really, the story makes little, if any, sense. While it starts interesting and I really loved the starting village, from there on it gets worse. You will spent about 3/4 of the game finding some temple high in the mountains. Then, when you find it, you will find there is nothing of interest there, basically just a passage to the next area. Seriously, for something we spent most of the game finding, why did we search for it in the first place anyway? There was nothing there! The place was not even relevant to story which is told after. And before that, before the temple, there is no story at all. Just go there and there to get there and there. Nothing else. Nothing remotely interesting. The only thing which saves the story from absolute disaster are the old characters from previous gothic installments which make an appearance along with some interesting new characters, I for example liked the Zyra character. Unfortunately not even all of these new characters are interesting and some are simply lame.
Gameplay 3/10
The next big disappointment, after the story, are skills. You get to choose from 2 fighting paths, 1 health path, 1 ranged weapons path and 3 spells, so all in all 7 skills. Nothing more. All the upgrades of these paths simply improve the basic precedence of it. I was especially disappointed by the fact there are only 3 spells in the game (or 4 since there is one special hidden). Their upgrades simply make them stronger or let them charge, but their basic functionality doesn't change. There are a few runes which should substitute for more spells, but seriously there are only like 4 different runes anyway, other ones you find are recycled with the same but more powerful functionality.
The combat in itself is not that bad. While it lacks the refinement of many current games, it is still an upgrade over Gothic 3. Ultimately it is something between Gothic's 2 combat and Gothic's 3.
The third and possibly worst disappointment is the map structure. While the previous gothic installments had a free roam type of map, similiar to Oblivion, but unlike it it was populated by monsters of varying difficulty (which was a great challenge), this new gothic is cut into map segments. Each segment has different monsters and yes, you guessed it, they increase in difficulty. So instead of trying to attack a troll right from the start like I used to, I have to be content with fighting wolves, boars and especially goblins for the whole 1/3 of the game.
The fourth disappointment is the fact monster get recycled, a lot. You will be fighting goblins of different tribes and perhaps colors for at least half of the game. Other monsters look exactly the same but have different names, while from the start you will be fighting scavengers, later on you will be fighting primeval scavengers, which are for no apparent reason a lot tougher than normal scavengers. Obviously the budget got cut short too early and so the developers instead of creating new monsters simply recycled the old ones.
Replayability 4/10
Perhaps replaying the game as different class (warrior vs mage) makes some sense, but still it is basically the same. The same few absolutely recycled monster, the same few skills which get stronger but don't change enough to keep you interested, the same throwaway story with no decisions what-so-ever, etc.
Also of note is the fifth main disappointment, I call it the 'marketing and cut-budget syndrome'. It basically means the first areas of the game (here it's Fenshyr and Stewark) are done quite nicely, contain a lot of quest and the monster are not recycled yet. Unfortunately the more you progress the less quests there are, the more monsters get recycled and so on. So obviously the game is made so, to make a good first impression and sell itself if you try renting it. But later on you will notice it is an illusion and both/either, the budget as well as creativity when creating the game, were not that high.
Also the last disappointment is the difficulty, which from the start is adequate, but later on, even on the highest difficulty, is a joke. At least for the mage character which I played.
So overall 6 big negatives, is quite much. I would discourage you from playing this game, unless you have nothing better of the genre to play. First of all I would recommend Risen which is a lot better (despite being a lot smaller in terms of gameplay hours) than this, than I would recommend older installments of the series (yes, even Gothic 3, if properly patched) and lastly I would recommend other games Oblivion, Two worlds even Divinity 2. After you finish all these games and find that you still like this genre, then try Arcania:Gothic 4.