It's a mix for me. 75% hated, 25% loved.
Loved
* The visuals. Just, wow, the graphics are beyond eye candy. If you could get diabetes of the eyes, this game would give it to you. I've never seen more fantastic graphics.
* Realistic plot, and mature themes. This isn't a fairy tale land. I love Game of Thrones and a Song of Fire and Ice both, and this really fits with it. The sexuality is neat, the plot is neat, it's just greatly-written. The characters are very well-designed too. The complex backstories and motivations kept me guessing.
* Dialogue. The written dialogue, as well as 99% of the voice acting, is astounding. It's no hokey bombastic Medieval Tymes stuff here, it's the real deal.
* Physics. A Medieval RPG with full physics? Yes, please.
* The music. Just amazing.
Hated
* The combat. No, I'm not saying this because it's hard, it's because it's not functional. Combat animations and movement, especially for Geralt, are stiff as a rock. PC controls are sometimes unresponsive. Hit detection is "meh" to say the least, and though I really liked how Geralt is just a guy, not a superhuman badass, it felt a little uncompelling in how you fight battles. A master monster hunter and feared warrior has to... constantly tumble around enemies, hit them once, then tumble some more? It just made Geralt seem a lot weaker, not least considering his total lack of any skills in the beginning of the game. People say you need tactics and strategy. That's true, and that's fine, but none of your tactics feel actually effective. It feels more like just running in, hoping to dodge what you can, occasionally poking an enemy with your really underwhelming swords, and just keep poking them. The fact a Nekker can do about three times the damage in a claw poke than your sword can in a swing just didn't sit well with me.
* The animations. In and out of combat, the animations are incredibly stiff. Running animations cause character to jitter around like tanks. Combat animations for both Geralt and the AI seem unfinished, and Geralt's own animations are sluggish and feel struggled. There's no sense of impact to his weapons at all, nor the AI's.
* The difficulty curve. It goes from being more difficult than Dark Souls to being easier than anything I've ever played. It's less of a roller coaster, more of a cliff jump in terms of how the difficulty is.
* The voice acting of Triss and Geralt. Triss is a nice character, but her voice actor seems like the kind of person who really doesn't like the job she's doing. Geralt? Fans can say all they want about how awesome his voice acting is, I thought Kristan Stewart could've delivered a better performance than Cockle did. Geralt sounds half-asleep most of the time, and his attitude comes off as less of dry, less of calm and collective, and more of a drugged-out rock attitude.
* The inventory and other systems are a little overly-complex. They weren't tough to use, no way, but they felt bulky and cumbersome.
* Lack of UI hints about certain things. For example, Signs. Would it have killed the developers to add in little tidbits like "Igni - Fire" to the Signs? Memorizing them is possible, but you'll forget in the heat of combat unless you rigorously study the journal, which again seems less of realism, more of time consumption.
* The ending... thanks for the sequal baiting.
Neutral
* Sexualization. Yeah, all the nudity and stuff is cool, but the game seems to go out of its way to take jabs at women. Maybe it's just the time period which would make tons of sense, but I can't tell if it's meant to be some kind of anti-feminist thing. I just wanted Geralt to chop some people's heads off when they started talking to women like garbage, but there's not many opportunities for it, sadly.
