Ok, so first I'll try to address some issues I've had and how I worked around them to see if it helps anyone. Then I'll try to describe how I feel about the game after playing for about 8 hours.

-------------------------------Issues------------------------------------------
1.) Game crashed immediately on startup
Fix: Switch to DX11 instead of Vulkan.

2.) Game Crashed when I tried to edit graphics settings or pretty much anything else. The farthest I could get was the character creator. Error was usually the "DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED"
Fix: Underclock GPU in AMD radeon settings by 5%, set framerate limit to 144Hz (I have a 144Hz monitor) in the game settings. When editing graphics settings in games, don't change from the default resolution at first. Set the frame rate limiter and stuff first before changing resolutions.

Further settings

I haven't seen this crash since, and I've only had 1 crash since then in 8 hours. It was a random black screen when I tabbed out I believe.

3.) Character randomly became useless in fights and inventory got wonky. You could click an action to do something, but it wouldn't actually do anything. Equipping items with right click -> char name wouldn't work, although you could still drag it onto the character. Nothing has really fixed this so far, so I've put that character back in the camp for now.

4.) Items stacking on top of each other in the inventory.
Fix: Just pull the stacked item into a different slot.

5.) Characters spin & stretch after dying sometimes.
Fix: Holt Alt and click on the title of their corpse to loot.

6.) Companion stopped being able to use actions in combat & out of combat.
Fix: None yet, but you can skip their turn with spacebar and send them back to camp.

7.) Textures started being replaced by lower quality (very low quality) ones at some point. Initially in dialogues as well, lower quality textures will load and then be immediately replaced by high quality textures.
Fix: ?? I'm restarting the game now to see if clearing my memory will help.


Overall performance has been very good and after I got through the initial, horrible crashes, it's been generally stable (1 crash in 8 hours)

My computer specs:
144Hz monitor (if you have a 60Hz monitor set framerate limit lower)
AMD Ryzen 3600
AMD RX 5700 XT
32GB DDR4 3600
Gigabyte x570

Windows 10
Latest graphics drivers.

-------------------------------First Impressions------------------------------------------

I've played a ton of D&D based cRPGs over the years and I enjoy them, but I really like Larian has tried to dumb down various aspects like character creation, leveling, classes, etc. IMO, D&D has become overly complex and there are all kinds of stupidly broken combinations you can make because it's impossible to balance a million and one combinations of class, spells, subclasses, feats, etc. I don't really care if I can't play a Yuan-ti monk, pale master, rogue, multiclass character, but if you like those intricacies you might dislike how this game does away with a lot of it.

Combat is very similar to Divinity Original Sin 2. You have the same interactions with elements on the ground and burning / aciding / freezing / tripping players. I was never really a big fan of that and I wish they'd have gotten rid of it. Other than that, I generally enjoyed the combat. The only thing that really bugs me is when you get fights with 30 enemies in them and have to wait it all out in realtime. I'm not really a fan of the free moves they've added as well. Jumping is cool out of combat, but jumping, pushing, dashing, etc. is all gimmicky imo and is just another annoyance. However, so far I feel like there are a lot of different ways to handle each fight, and this is a big improvement over DOS2. Instead of using broken combinations of water, fog, lightning, ice, whatever, there's so far been a few neat ways to handle each fight. I do like the additional use of elevation as well in fights.

As far as the UI goes, I'm not having too many problems with it. I'd like to be able to multiselect half of my party and quickly send them one way, while I send the other another way, but they've stuck to their DOS2 system of everyone follows the leader unless they're unchained. The inventory UI has taken a step back since DOS2 IMO, and I hope they work on it. I did run into a weird bug where items would stack on top of each other, but you could unstack them so nothing really major there. A lot of item icons look like quick reskins or asset reuse from DOS2 which is disappointing.

Overall, probably the most damning thing I'd have to say to anyone is that I do feel like this is mostly a D&D reskin of DOS2. I enjoyed DOS2 as well as Baldur's Gate, so I'd buy it either way, but if you hated DOS2 you'll probably hate this game as well. To me, the cutscenes feel like a modern Baldur's Gate (lore might not be correct, w/e).The combat is very similar to DOS2 (just improved), but the inventory icons, color palette, controls, writing, and feel of things is very much Original Sin. Luckily I haven't run across their brand of humor yet (which is funny, but wouldn't fit). I think it'll be a good game once the bugs are ironed out and it's finished, but unless they change all the item icons & art I don't see it "feeling" like you're back in Baldur's Gate. Walking through the mindflayer ship felt like Baldur's Gate 3, but as soon as I got off it I felt like I was back on the beaches of Divinity Sin.

I have also switched off Vulkan. I've only managed two attempts at playing the game before getting frustrated.

My first complaint is perhaps personal preference, but...Why does the game not bind the usual keystrokes (eg: "C" for Character Sheet)?

My second complaint has to do with the visuals. It took me five minutes to find the brain I needed to attack. Yes, the graphics are dazzling, but I would much rather have the traditional top down view (ala Pathfinder, BG 2, etc.) . Also, I'm not a big fan of sweeping my cursor all over the area to find things that are interactable.

Press "o" for top down, press alt to highlight enemies and lootable objects worked for me

Thanks! :) Not sure if I ever would have found the 'o' key. Still not thrilled with results of the 'Alt', though.

Actually, has anyone noticed how holding Alt doesn't highlight everything? There are a lot of apparently useless items (like cans and bottles) that are in the game world, but they don't show up while pressing Alt. I wonder if it's on purpose because it would clutter the UI, or if it's a bug.

Alt highlights chests or corpses. That is something at least. But nothing else.Also, you can't pan the camera while holding it down. So you have to pan, let go, press alt and release that to pan around again.

I'm continuing to play, and I must say, the game is starting to rub off a little bit more on me. I think I'll withhold judgement and just play the game and see where it leads.