Fantastic coop game, extremely accessible but still with a lot of gameplay depth.

Combat gameplay is excellent. Crafting progression is rewarding. World is beautiful, biomes are distinctive and exciting to explore. Music and sound design are fantastic. You'll notice lots of the negative reviewers still played for hundreds of hours. If you try to explore and treat it like an open world RPG - it is something to marvel at. If you try to rush to late game or max out your crafting skills to become the richest guy in the coolest armour, the game is going to feel like work and you're going to burn out.

Co-opping with friends could be a lot better, pre-dungeons - quest sharing is needed. They are giving a lot of attention to end-game content with recent patches and the economy is a lot friendlier to newcomers right now.

Liked:
-Combat is excellent.
-Difficulty (spacing out long rests, very deliberate game balance)
-Only some crates have to be clicked on, and they always have something nice in them.
-Cover from ally's and environment like Xcom - excellent implementation
-Engagements/environments are designed to pose a nice tactical challenge
-The way the dungeons are structured/designed it feels like a good DM explaining things and you are making choices.
-I didn't have to reload ever (I wasn't suddenly thrown into an unwinnable fight because i explored in the wrong direction).
-graphics/aesthetics - character proportions and colours are perfect.
-4 companions leading the conversation together - much more authentic to real DnD than one character choosing from 3 different options.
-Not as repetitive as the other CRPG's - because positioning/lighting is much more dynamic and important. Really well done by the game devs.

Disliked:
-Learning curve for understanding DnD rules
-Basic tooltips (much better implementation in other crpg's)
-Lack of introduction to how stats/proficiency change hit chance and damage range - have a translation for players unfamiliar to dnd ruleset - they're basic concepts but always explained with jargon.
-Fighter and Ranger are very basic/limited
-Having to plan your character from the start of very likely end up with a mess (i had to restart twice before I got a party which was versatile and fun).
-The cutscenes/character designs are obviously not at expected level for 2021.

*all in all the game is great, highly recommend if you like tactical combat and crpg's

I cannot recommend this game enough. Obsidian seem like one of the few game developers left that have consistently high standards - the mechanics in this game are so staggeringly streamlined, while maintaining a great deal of depth, replayability and immersion.

It's really sad that DOS2 overshadowed this games release. Provided you have the difficulty set correctly, the combat is much more rewarding, dynamic and creative. Fights feel like a battlefield, positioning matters - Healer getting attacked by big melee creature -> Knock it down with tank, immobilize it with mage, then quick-equip your melee characters with bows/gun to snipe it till immobilize ends. Walk into room with heap of enemy archers -> send tank in first to get aggro, teleport mage behind group and cast cone of fire while moving your tank back enough to avoid the exploding barrel. Each of your character has strengths and shines depending on the encounter. It's not just performing the same rotation of spells each fight.

The dialogue options actually allow you to change how you are perceived and interact with the world - by being diplomatic you could exit a conversation with an extra necklace, some food and a buff. By being aggressive you can instead fight and kill the character to take their weapon... or you can do first one then the other. Side-quests don't take away from the urgency of the main quest, and can provide some rewarding autonomy/decision puzzles. In Baldurs gate 3 / DOS2 it so often feels like the game is trying to trick me with dialogue options... "you give the goblins 100copper to stop the fighting - They know there's more where that came from so launch a full on attack" *eyeroll* OR you're given options which put you into unwinnable scenarios that you have to reload and position for with your new knowledge of the future... the absolute worst.

The world building and story telling in poe2 is exceptional. Your story is just one of many stories playing out in the world at the same time. Companions have INTERTWINED motivations, they accompany you on the things you do, because they want to fulfill their own purposes. You want similar things by progressing the main quest, but not the same. It's very silly in other companion games where your party members seem to do 90% of the questing just as a favour to the main character... with the hope that they'll get help in return (in their completely unrelated quest lines) later down the track... Or where everyone has the same problem, "you also need to throw a ring into mordor!? that is unbeleivable! Lets spend the next year together, oh btw, I'm a cleric, it's unrelated to the ring thing".

I'm not a CRPG superfan, my recent top game choices would be xcom/soulsbornes/hollow knight. This game just really surprised me, enough that I had to write a review, also fueled by my rage for Larian's recent attempts at the same genre, which cost substantially more, sold substanitally more, but their game mechanics, class building, story telling, world building, and role playing are all much less competent.

I highly recommend reading the synopsis from the first game If you've not played it, because it helps give context to the world of deadfire. I completely understand the negative reviews because of performance issues, long load screens don't bother me all that much. You don't ever need to google anything while playing this game, don't be intimidated by the character creation, the game is robust and forgiving enough that non optimal class/stat distribution will still work and be fun - my one tip is that points in perception won't be wasted, because accuracy = consistency.

Give this game a try if you like good games and don't mind reading dialogue/skill tooltips!