I can totally agree with you on the first part of your post. I tried to read the rules of 5e separetely, so I could get a better grasp of the game. Can't say it helped much. I'll have to get back to those rules and give them another read. It's not an easy game to get into. I still don't understand many things that happen. I didn't use stealth yet. I made a fighter character, so I don't have to bother myself too much with the rules and things like casting spells and stealth (though playing a spellcaster in BG2 was my favorite thing). Game is really lacking a manual. I guess we will get one when the game releases. BG2 had a manual with more than 200 pages that explained the AD&D rules used in that game. I still don't understand very well how attributes come into play when I cast spells and why almost every spell has a save tied to an attribute. I still have to wrap my head around some of the stuff too. But I'm getting there. In the beginning I couldn't even control the camera. Now it's manageable. I still didn't get used to take advantage of the verticality of the world in combat. But I started using those jumps, and it's awesome. There are many things I still need to accomodate myself with. But I think I will make it in the end and I think it's worth the effort to learn those systems. At least that's my opinion.

I have been to the grove, and sold some stuff to the trader. It seems the trader leaves the grove once you complete the questline that resolves their issue, so now I am constantly becoming encumbered and having to send items back to camp. For me though, have a town/village provides a nice respite from constant dungeon crawling and fighting. I like popping into a tavern for a drink and a chat with the locals, maybe a game of dice or throwing knives, or speaking to the local priest / scholar and getting the rundown on the local rumours and lore. Perhaps getting involved in some of the intrigue in town, that sort of thing. Yet after 16 hours of grinding there is no town in sight, I've just entered the Underdark and have a long slog of more fighting ahead of me. In BG1 & BG2, IWD1 & IWD2, NWN, PoE etc etc you either start in a town or reach one within the first couple of hours.

Damn, I had no idea. Well, this is awkward. Because I feel the same way you do. In Baldur's Gate 1 there was the Friendly Arm Inn, a place where I usually go back for resting, trading, gossip and healing services. In Baldur's Gate 2 there was Copper Coronet, which had a similar purpose and you would reach it in the first few hours, just like it was the case with Friendly Arm Inn. Not only that Copper Coronet was the location where you could do all those things, but it was also the location where your companions went when you released them from your service. And both locations had a few nice quests related to them. You would get a few quests at Friendly Arm and the silver pantaloons. Copper Coronet was even more important, having the slavers quest, the quest from the sewers with Lilarcor (the talking sword) and the fighting arena. I think you could even find gloves of lockpicking upstairs, quite a nice item for your thief. A few companions could only be met in there (Korgan, Nalia, Anomen)... and some of the more important quests from Act 2 (Firkraag and Nalia's Stronghold) would start there. It was the perfect place for any adenturer. Later there was added a special vendor there with some items that were better than average but quite expensive, making the place rather popular even later in the game. It was an epic location!

I suppose in Baldur's Gate 3 similar to this is the camp. Sadly, there are not many things to do in the camp right now. Maybe I didn't advance far enough in the game, or it just doesn't change that much in Early Access. I remember Swen saying that the camp will expand and will become larger and that you will get more followers that will arrive at your camp. So far I only got the Hooded Skeleton and nothing else. Maybe I didn't get far enough in the game or maybe there was some hidden content that I didn't manage to find and skipped it, I don't know. But besides talking to those 5 NPCs when going to bed, there isn't much else to do there right now. Again, maybe there will be more stuff later in the game, but right now the camp doesn't have much appeal to me. It doesn't even have a vendor. Which is sad.

This is confirmed for the final version of the game.

Agree with you 100%.

First of all, the game looks great and the story and characters feel ok, though nothing particularly exciting. I do have some issues:

There's a bunch of little things that bother me an together makes the game feel too much like Original Sin and not so much D&D:

-Everyone has a once per rest "special attack" tied to the weapon they're using. What is this, 4th edition D&D?
-Weapon dipping: You walk past a fire and casually wave your sword in that direction. Now you have a flaming weapon that does fire damage for a bit? What?
-Everyone can hide as a bonus action. Way to invalidate the rogue class. Maybe to lead people to their own version of the ranger which has spells, multiple attacks, a combat style and can use thieves' tools?
Speaking of tool proficiencies: The backgrounds, which are supposed to give you these, don't generally do so. I suppose this could be fixed down the line, if they add uses for stuff like "brewing" and "smithing", but the criminal background is supposed to give you thieves' tools proficiency.
-My Fighter didn't get a fightning style at level 1. I assume that happens at level 2 when the ranger gets one, but that's an unnecessary and annoying change.
-When I get an attack of opportunity, my character attacks with both main hand and off hand weapon. The offhand attack shouldn't be part of a reaction. It's not even part of the attack action - it's a bonus action that you're supposed to have the option for if you take the attack action, and nobody gets more than one bonus action per round.
-Except in this game they do...
-The range on the bows is way too short! Up to 80" should be short range for bows (max range 320), and even longer for long bows (150/600).

Unrelated to my D&D rules complaints:
-The music is not bad, but quite bland.
-The camera control is clunky and often doesn't let you see more than maybe 80 feet ahead, especially if it gets "stuck" on the world's edge, or in a ceiling, which is pretty annoying, especially when you hear there's something there, or your characters talking about there being something there. Should just be free (let you turn and tilt as you wish) and I would be satisfied with it.
-The UI is inefficient. What in other games might be one or two clicks can be several clicks in this (and in Original Sin as well, so this isn't new).
-Lack of detail in the UI: I can't easily tell how a damage or attack roll is arrived at and I can't tell if things like my dueling +2 damage bonus is being applied.
-Pets frequently get stuck in doors, on slopes, slightly narrow corridors, ledges (even if they can fly!).

I'm sure I'll play through the entire game at some point when it's finished, just to see it all play out, but it's all kind of "meh".

It might be the fact that the game exe itself tries to connect to Larian via a Routers UPnP port (which should never have been a thing, but router manufacturers decided at some point it would be a good idea to have an internet facing one and enabled it by default)

See Steve Gibsons Shields Up UPnP vulnerability check here https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2
Click Proceed, then click the big UPnP check

The game makes a network.log in your \Baldurs Gate 3\Bin\ folder

Because I have the routers settings disabling UPnP, the game reports the following ..
[12-10-2020 22:00:16:328][F:\Jenkins\workspace\Repo\FW4\Submission\Stable\LSProjects\Framework\Code\GameNet\PortMapperUPnP .cpp 115 net::PortMapperUPnP::Discover]: [NET] Discovery finished... no usable UPnP enabled routers found

(my bold)

So Larian are expecting people to have a router with the vulnerable UPnP port open to the world .. madness.

They can surely try. I doubt that without some proficiency they are really successful about it. But I didn't use stealth much so far, I'm still in my first run. Testing stealth as a game mechanic is something I intend to postpone for later runs.

Isn't hide and move silently available as untrained skills in the base game?
What makes them OP in this game is how Larian implemented stealth.

It might just be me but everything seems seems stacked against you. Constantly fail dice rolls if it low one had too roll a 6 or lower, after testing 25 times it only succeed 3 times the odds of that are astronomical, miss attacks at 90% plus but enemies nearly always hit?

The grove battle is way too long comes of you are playing a table top wargame and not a rpg, also with this battle no matter what side you choose you get screwed as which ever side you have has less troops than the other.