My mini review (mini because I have only played for a couple hours so take all of this with that grain of salt):
Install
The install was fine. I thought it was kind of a good idea that they prompt you for registration at the beginning of the install, so you can be registering while the program is installing. The install is about 6.6 gig I think. It does require the newest DirectX and .NET Framework 2.0, and will install (with prompts) either of those things that are missing. I'm assuming on the DirectX, as I had the newest. I got the DVD, it's one DVD and you get another disc with a seven day trial for D&D Online.
There is a patch already (I don't think that's a bad thing BTW). It's 85 megs or so. I did Update right away from the menu and found it.
Character Creation
I think they did well here too, though there are things that could have been done better. In NWN for example you would pick Weapon Focus and then it would give you another menu to pick the weapon. Here they list out every weapon in the same feat list. Add in every skill focus listed separately and it makes for a list that's WAY too long. Your character's appearance is only slightly more adaptable than NWN. They use a 32 point buy system for scores, and there are background traits, though the ones I saw didn't seem to match the ones I've seen elsewhere (I don't remember seeing "Ladies Man" for example). I didn't notice that til later, so there may be more to that and I just missed it. When I looked all of the traits had drawbacks, so I didn't take one.
There is one new (for NWN) base character class called the Warlock, which looks really interesting. It's the magic user that uses magic almost exclusively, having unlimited ranged eldritch bolts to work with, and unlimited incantations per day somehow (not sure how that works as I don't have 3.5). There are a bunch of new races and subraces to choose from: three kinds of dwarves, four kinds of elves, two kinds of gnomes, two kinds of halflings, aasimar, and tieflings. All have different abilities and some have level adjustments as well. There are sixteen prestige classes to choose from.
Graphics
You know, right now I like the old graphics better. These are certainly dogs, they want some big old machine to run them. My machine isn't great, but it's not bad by any means, and the default setting it put me at was jumpy. I've lowered it, but it wanted to restart and I didn't, so I'll see what it's like tonight. The characters don't fit into the background as well as they did in NWN, they look like they're in front of a green screen and the background is projected (i.e. they have sort of outlines around them) sometimes, and sometimes they clip into the scenery (like sinking to their ankles in a hill or bank). I suppose it's possible that since I'm running on lower settings that's why it doesn't look as good. I wish I knew what I'd have to do to make it look better, I just can't see going to a 256 Mb card as making that much difference, and I'm not going to spend to get a 512. Oh, there's an NVidia logo here too, argh. I know what my next card will be.
The four person party looks especially silly moving around the map. I think it's the running animations, some of which are just not very good.
I've read that their goal here was to make a system with a very high graphics upper end, so that when people are playing this two or three years down the line the graphics will still be as current as they can be. I think that's a great idea, but I think they made a mistake not making the low settings work on low enough machines. If they limit their audience now, there are fewer people that will be playing two or three years down the line.
The cutscenes weren't impressive either, though I admit they grew on me as I played into the game more. There's a lot of them in the tutorial. Voice acting has been all over the map, with some of it laugh out loud bad, some very good, and one that even started bad and is now good.
For me the graphics are the least impressive part of the game, by a pretty large margin.
Tutorial/Interface
The tutorial is pretty good. It has an OK story, and is well laid out to get you used to working with a party of four characters. There's nothing mysterious about it, you shouldn't be wandering around too much wondering what to do, and that's good in a tutorial. They cover a wide amount of the basic pieces of the interface and play. The only thing I ran into here was that the last couple pop ups in the tutorial (you know, they pop up a window to tell you what you need to do, and how to do it) were blank, no content in them at all. Not sure what the deal was there.
I was third level at the end (or what I assume was the end) of the tutorial.
The interface is OK, but again I'm not sure why they changed it from NWN, and I'm not sure it's an improvement. The map is up by default, which is fine (I left it up in NWN), but the character screen doesn't seem as interesting to me. So far it doesn't work badly, or even just OK. It's a good interface, it will work fine once I'm used to it, but right now I'm not sure why they bothered to change it. Maybe for higher resolutions or something. I did have one problem with it; when I leveled to third level I clicked on my character to level him, but wound up with the portrait of one of the other characters in the party. It was benign, it just threw me for a second.
Combat is pretty much the same, click to attack. There are hotkeys for a lot of things of course, I think I'll wind up using those more with this interface. The camera seems OK, I haven't had any really big problems with it.
Gameplay
I admit it. I was in "one more thing" mode at the end of the evening, and that can only be a very good thing. It's been a while since I've been there. Parts of the plot have already revealed themselves, but there's been a couple of surprises as well. I'd say the gameplay is looking very very good. And as long as I like that I'll be happy.
There's a pretty wide variety of AI options for the party members. Some of which made it into NWN, some of which I think are new. All are set in the character's properties, not through conversation.
That's pretty much all I can think of. Right now it's looking very good to me, just because I have that "just a little more" feeling from it. Quite frankly though, I think there's a lot here NOT to like. Especially in the graphics, which don't at all justify to me the requirements they seem to have.
I can try and answer any specific questions people have.
