Well as a first attempt of the polish team i must really admit that they did pull off a good game but there are some mishaps what really made The Witcher subpar to gothic 2 for example.
Here is the problems i saw in The Witcher:

Character developement: First it looked promising and it turned out to be that you will be an almost can do everything Witcher. Good in a RPG ? No
Choice of weapons: There is really only 2 major weapons in this game which you can choose from and there are some improvement with a better version but that's all that is to it.
Combat: Well The Witcher was very easy on normal mode for me at least. The balance was a joke. I mean if Azar Javed (a late battler) dies after 2 Ignis then the balance is a joke .... the combat lasted for +- 5 seconds
The combat has it's ups and down. Really boring was the combat in the swamps where you had to fight through hordes of drunken ones and other creatures which gave almost no exp that really sucked.

The Witcher is a good game but truly brilliant ? No

I hope CDProject learns from the mistakes in the first one and makes a true good game out of the Witcher 2. The Witcher is a good game but is subpar in many aspects to a game like gothic 2 which i see as superior.....

You made your point, and you can rate the game as you like huh ? But a lot of people appreciate the game as it is so let them rate as they want.

Well, I'll be getting Gothic 2 for free with TW2! Glad to know its a good game :).

If TW2 is a bad game then at least you have a true masterpiece well worth 50-60$ even now ^.

Haven't played The Witcher, bought the game from a Steam sale but I don't have enough space on my laptop's HDD (need 15GB, have 13GB). Here's hoping the new GOG version does come lighter in size as the system requirements states it (8.5GB of free space required).

So I can't really say whether The Witcher is overrated or not, but I have played Gothic 2, and while it is an amazing game, it gets tedious sometimes, too much grinding required, a la jRPG... Oh and the english voice acting is so bad it's laughable. Nonetheless Gothic 2 is a must play, story is good and its role-playing elements are great... for the most part.

I'm sad to hear that you found it overrated OP, I personally found it as one of the best games I have played in my 12 years of playing-way-too-much gaming.

The story, setting and atmosphere is just unbeatable.. I loved almost everything about the game, it was superb. I give it a 10/10 and I have only ever done that for like what.. 2 other games out of probably a thousand or more?

Could it be that you're a person who really pays a lot of attention to game mechanics? That you are a person who plays games to beat hard challenges?
If i look at your remarks, they seem all to relate to this.

I believe that most people love the witcher that badly in the first place for the very developed narrative and setting. Actually,

That could explain why it is not your cup of tea, but is it for many many other people.

Well just play gothic 2 and then you will see what is the difference and it is not just the challenge.

I'm primarily a Gothic fan, and your points are somewhat fair: The Witcher was indeed a little tiny bit in those aspects you mentioned. I still loved the game though and it's actually the only one that ever came close to giving me the same feeling as the first two Gothics. :)

It's true that the gothic series is more far-reaching and open ended, but in the final analysis having the existence of both series is for the best. No reason to hate on The Witcher because it "wasn't as good as G2". Who cares? Both games are leagues above many RPG offerings in recent memory.

I've started this game a few times, the furthest I've made it is the start of Act 3. It really is pretty bland - I don't play RPGs for the challenge, I play for narrative, characters, atmosphere, the overall immersion. It's far too dry to be interesting, and the rough English translation (even in the Enhanced Edition) doesn't exactly help things.

I am looking forward to the Witcher 2. If they do it right, it can actually be good.

The fear that The Witcher 2 is going to be the same as The Witcher 1, stops me from purchasing it.

First I had the russian version of the game, almost on the day one. Bought it, cause of all the talks that this is going to be the best RPG ever. I played to chapter 3 and then got very, very bored. Same old few items, same old clunky combat, the same quest types.
The most annoying thing for me was, that there is no freedom. One have to grind all the quests in the area to be able to continue with the story and to be able to leave the place.
Every night same enemies popped up and attacked me and every day same old town folks gave me new fetch quests to go collect or kill the same enemies from night time.

I gave the game to my best friend, cause he knows russian very good too, but he didn't like it either.
Later I bought again the game from Steam for cheap, the Enhanced edition. At least now the game doesn't have laggs, long loading times etc. I thought that now years after, I will be more ready to jump in and enjoy the so called from every one great game. Unfortunately, this time I got bored even faster, althou I don't t remember any quest from my first play through.
It's like playing MMO, kill this, collect that.. and sorry, no fancy items for you. There are couple of armours and few swords, thats it.
No character customization, looking over my white haired dude for dozen of hours slashing same old sword and wearing same old suit, doing countless fetching quests made this games sitting on the bottom of my RPG games.
It's like NWN, but darker and with boobies, minus all the customization and skills.

I think I should wait and see player reviews about The Witcher 2 and if it is like the first one, but with cooler graphics etc. I will pass.

I share all the complaints of the OP, but I absolutely loved the game overall. Did he every imply that they couldn't? o.O

I'm sorry you didn't like it as much as some of us. Sure some of the mechanics could use some work but the storyline, the choices you make, and then discovering hours later how doing A causes B in a way you never expected. It's hard for me to see your points as solid evidence that it's a poor game, though I am slanted as I have enjoyed the books as well as the game.

Gothic 2 on the other hand I am not fan off. Bought it on GoG. Loaded it up.. 45 minutes into it wished I could just give away my copy if not get a refund. (So if there is a way to do that oh GOG admins, lemme know - someone else can have that copy of Gothic 2)

//Haters gonna hate.

I'm more concerned about the "ticks" the characters have. Vesimir constantly does a weird move, as if he was trying to wring his own neck, and then that redhead in Act 1 that without any relation to her words shows the player how a stream flow, you know, something like what some people do when they say "kinda".
And then we have the conversations, that are sometimes broken, like asking Lambert about the styles in the Prologue, where he constantly repeats the sentence about the 2 fighting styles, without relation to his last sentence.

Just pointing out, there ARE things to pick on in the Witcher. There is no game without flaw, pointing them out is not a sin. Some people may not like the style of the Witcher, and would probably want to know things like that before buying. One critical review tells me more than 10 positive ones. So haters gonna hate? I always respond with 'fans gonna blow'. ;)

So thank You for Your critical collaboration, i for one appreciate it.
And now, i'll be going back to playing this game, perhaps i'll [learn to] like it. :)