I liked Divine Divinity, it has a good pace to the combat. It's a good action rpg, with some Ultima gameplay elements. It has great atmosphere. If you like action rpg's with exploration, then you should give it a try. It does have a pretty good story on top of it, with a lot of dialogue.
Beyond Divinity's combat is a lot clunkier, and the voice acting can be grating compared to the first one, where it was much better. The land is quite colourless too, it would have been nice for some better scenery. It's also a lot more linear, with some odd story ideas if you're coming from the first one, hence the story is not as good. I thought it was an okay game, not worth your time unless you really love action rpg's.
Divinity 2 has a good start, but then falls apart. It attempts a lot of humour, but instead of being original or funny, it just copies everything else in existence. Some people like that, hence the amount of views some people get on YouTube, but I don't find repeated jokes funny a 30th time, so I wasn't into that part of the game. I did like it at first, but once I started to get dragon powers, it all went down hill for me in story and in gameplay. I liked I of the Dragon, so I don't have a problem with being a dragon, it wasn't that.
Overall a good series, but I'd stick to just the first one if that's your type of game. As for your question, it pales in comparison to other RPG's for sale here in my opinion, but the first Divine Divnity is still a great action rpg.
But at the end of the day it's all subjective and personal preference. You should try the first one at least if you like action rpgs.