It has a super long tutorial, basically. Do yourself a favor & don't give up until you get through to the end of the blood baron's quest tree. Once that is done, the game takes off & has another 50-70 hours in it. If you still hate it after finishing that quest, I'd say you gave it an honest shot and it just isn't for you.
I gave it another go, been playing it more for the past couple of days and it's getting much better. The story is still somewhat underwhelming (Just started the Red Baron quests), but it's getting better.
My issues with this game are the following:
- Controls and gameplay are super clunky, took a while to get used.
- The learning curve is quite steep.
- This is my first Witcher game, so I'm not as connected to the story or characters (It's getting better though).
- The game is somewhat confused, it's massive and kind of an open world, yet it's super story driven. This does not make a good combo imo.
- Takes time to get used to the lore and setting. On the outside people think it's a western RPG, but once you play it, it does not feel like one.
Anywyas, hopefully it get's better as I keep playing it.
Unfortunately, that seems to be common for story-driven RPGs of the last 10 years. You have to suffer through 5 to 10 hours of tutorial and cinematics to get to the actual game. More recently, Kingdom Come: Deliverance was the same way. I hope that a developer comes along soon to put a stop to this trend of ever-longer tutorials and show the industry a way to have story not come at the expense of early gameplay.
I honestly don't mind tutorials if the game grabs me from the get go. I have only seen two companies do this very well, BioWare and Bethesda.