Describing this game is pretty hard. Like Journey it is one of those that enthrall you once you play yourself. Buy it, regret nothing.
What it says on the tin. Absolutely love the world building, characters, rpg stuff - awesome. 5/5. The stuttering, frame rates etc on a powerful rig are abysmal. Tried several tips from the internet (reducing cpu core count artificially, windowed mode, no ambient occlusion, fixed frame rate, no v-sync, nvidia control panel setup....) - no such luck. Either you live with the stuttering in what is otherwise a beautifully crafted world or you miss out on an amazig game. No easy choice. As for Avowed: Def buy if the tech works out. Will wait for reviews on this.
The game was so hyped that people started to expect the perfect game. The more people do that the more they wish for different games, so some are bound to be disappointed in the end. This is not a GTA nor a Witcher Game. Think more Deus Ex than Elder Scrolls. There is good to outstanding - story, looks, lore, assets, music, voice acting, animations, design, amount of content, characterization of NPCs, tiny details that make the world shine like animated cross walks and general production value. The relationships with NPCs are much better than in other games. There are things that keep this game from being the best ever in my book and I can't tell if it is fixable or here to stay. Like balancing is a nightmare. The feeling of using a melee weapon is awful. An NPC tells me to get a beer from the fridge and not only is there no beer, but there is acutally no fridge! (This last one is only worth mentioning because CDPR has delivered above all expectations and hope with Witcher 3. I know that this is nitpicking and in other games I probably wouldn't even have looked for the beer). And yes, some things are just not done yet. A minimap that doesn't zoom out. No hairdressers. No option not to display a hat or recolor/transmogrify your clothes. Glitches and bugs, but on my (very old) PC the game works, reliably and beautifully. You can count on one thing with CDPR. They are not done with this yet. I remember Witcher 1 when it first came out and it was a mess. They worked on it and gave us an enhanced edition for free. Unlike some other big names who will just drop something that didn't turn out like they wanted. I expect them to do the same here.
Did you see what this looks like? If it hadn't been recommended by someone I trust, I never would have bothered to look twice. Bought it anyway and left it in my library for a while. Then I started it up, because it will run on my crappy laptop and BOY! I cannot stop playing this thing! It is funny, it is challenging, well rounded, it has a great flow, there's always varied things to do and it keeps you engaged. I don't regret a thing. And a word to those who recommend buying on steam rather than gog: The dlc is here and you shouldn't fault a tiny indie dev for working with one distribution platform after another. I am sure that the decision making behind the delay was not: "Oh we don't like the gamers on gog". Otherwise they would've just not released here in the first place. TL,DR: Buy it - Play it - Regret nothing
