Takes time to get in to, but it's worth it in the long run. A RPG jewel that do have some minor flaws.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The good things:
* Story. It's not the greatest, but how many times can you come up with a 'Something is wrong and you have to set it right' story in a fantasy world? It's far from super, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with it either.
* Character customization and build-up, or "leveling up" to speak RPG-language. Personally I think it's great. It's sort of Advanced Dungeons & Dragon...but then again not. You can create pretty 'strange' characters. My 'main char' is a warrior with thief-skills for example. Ok, I fail alot on pick locks and disarm traps, but with patience I do get them opened in the end.
I ended up with a group build-up of two Warriors, a mercenary (the Dwarf) and the Elf woman (Spellweaver. I'm using her for heals, cure poison and to summon a big nasty bear) you find pretty early on in the swamp.
* Combat and stategy. Takes abit of time to get in to, especially fine-tuning when to heal and when not to. You won't die to often though. If some of the characters has fallen in a fight but you beat the enemy, the fallen will stand up and be wounded. So there is no 'resurrection'. There is only victory or death. "Tanks" can go offensive or defensive depending on the situation and the resistance. To boost for example defensive abit more, you get combat-talents like 'Master parry' which gives you a boost for a while in the parry skill. Overall I'd say the combat reminds me abit of the combat in for example Baldurs Gate. You can pause in combat to think what to do next, what targets to attack, what potions to drink..and so on.
* World. The world is beautiful. I played on max settings at 1920x1200 and I had no FPS issues at all. It's very detailed, and the only things I didn't like, is that you can't go everywhere you can see, but then again, I understand why.
* Feel. The 'steering/moving around' the characters can feel abit strange in the begining. Personally I played it in the same 'mode' I played for exampe Morrowind in, 3'rd person (there is no 1st person by the way) with the 'camera' at maybe 5 meters (15 feet) behind the main-char while running around in the areas, and about double that during combat so I got a better overview. You can turn the camera around just about as much as you want.
* Quests. Ok, some where abit silly, but overall they are what you expect from a fantasy RPG. Meaning.. "Clean out the rats in the sewers" quests, but also more, I'd call them 'detective quests' where you search for evidence or eavesdrop on a conversation. Other quests are more of the "Go there and get the X-thingie" type. Personally I have not had any problems with the quests other that I've failed a few. Another great thing, is that you have a special ""Quest items" bag so you don't mix them up with the other stuff you carry around.
* Difficulty. The game is pretty hard from the beginning to the end (As I said before, I'm almost there...short way to go). Just the way I like it. There is no holding hands here.
* Sound/Music/Voice. Overall great music and sounds. Same with the voice-acting except for maybe one or two NPS's. But I can't really complain. There are good/great RPG games out there with worse voice-acting than this.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The bad things (Not catastrophic though. No such things in the game in my humble opinion. Just things that could have been better/different):
* Group. You are limited to just 4 players in your group. Sometimes you meet people that you invite to your house. If you go there, you can swap people out and in again as you please. I think this isn't the best solution. I'd rather have the "Usual 6 suspects" and then work from there. Only four is for me personally, abit on the low side.
* Items. Full inventory..yes, and all the time. You can put things in chests in your house though. But honestly, you're not in your house when you're deep down in a dungeon and not sure what items to destroy to get room for that magic item or those new potions. I seem to have a gazillion flowers, metal-bars, leatherstraps and strings, Satan and all his little wizards in by characters bags.
* Magic items. Personally I feel that there could have been more "Cool stuff", but that's just me ;) It works just fine the way it is and I understand why there aren't that many due to balancing problems later in the game.
Not sure I can come up with anything more 'bad' really.
If I was to describe the game to someone who had not played it or seen it before, I'd describe it as a combination of Baldurs Gate and Witcher and Dungeons and Dragons online, though you might come up with a completely different mix of games ;)
Overall a great game that I'd recommend to all RPG-fans out there. Everything isn't great, but the overall quality is and it is worth playing.