Listen, I'll be upfront. I think this game is vastly overrated and what frustrates me most is that it gets away with things that other games get shredded for.

What don't I like about it? Well...

First off, the game doesn't run particularly well if you're not running it off of a SSD. I got the weird portrait bug multiple times during my playthrough, crazy texture pop-in and even T-posing models at times. Granted, I was running the game just fine otherwise, but it was really jarring how unpolished this game was technically just because I wasn't using an SSD.

I think the writing is extremely overrated. If someone gave you this storyline in an actual D&D game, I guarantee you would think it's boring. I don't like putting spoilers in my reviews, but yeah - the game has a twist that doesn't really end up mattering that much depending on your choices, and the overall plot just doesn't land. There's no driving factor beyond the Mindflayer thing (being careful not to spoil here). Any other game would get shredded for how utterly mid the story of BG3 is.

And people really love the characters of Baldur's Gate 3. They're designed well, they're voice acted well. But to give Astarion of all characters Best Performance? All love to the VA, but no way. Astarion's story doesn't even progress until Act 2, more specifically the end of Act 2. And then once you get to the city, his story's done. How is that worthy of Best Performance? That'd be like if in 2015 we gave Best Performance to Piper Wright of Fallout 4 instead of Geralt from The Witcher 3. It sounds ridiculous on paper.

I do like the companions, I do! But they're not that interesting. They're all good, and none of them are great. I love Gale, but his story just ends on a conversation unless you detonate him. Wyll's story is probably the most entertaining, and you have to do his too, since you can't get a satisfying end for Karlach unless you do. Yeah, unless you do these specific things for another character (Wyll), Karlach doesn't get a happy ending. I know people love Shadowheart, but good God is her story boring. I don't care about any of this, and I actually killed her by accident in dialogue at one point. Which by the way, bugged out, causing the game to fade to black, and then when the game faded back in, she was permanently gone, so I had to reload. No indication that I killed her. I got the best ending for each character and honestly, I wish I cared more.

People love calling this game a sprawling RPG, but it's actually quite small if you really think about. It has huge open areas, but those are only really a puddle deep once you really start exploring. There's a good amount of side quests, sure, but none of them were really that interesting or worth doing until you get to the city in Act 3. And I did actually like doing quests in the city. I loved doing back to back run arounds in the city, since it gave me shades of Oblivion, which I love.

I think the worst part of this game that gets a pass is the combat. But I think I just personally hate 5th Edition. I think 5E has a plethora of issues compared to previous versions that weren't mitigated in this game. Larian used the most boilerplate and generic as possible version of D&D, with what feels like the Player's Handbook alone. And then they have the nerve to cap you at Level 12 instead of 20. Why? But I'll ease up on Larian a bit and blame the issues with the combat mostly on my gripes with 5E. I've whiffed so many damned attacks in this game. I've whiffed attacks more than XCOM! How's that even possible?!

I'll leave this by saying I hated playing this game, but I respect it and I'm still going to score it high. Because I respect Larian and I think they made something great here, but I don't personally find it fun or interesting to play. To be honest, if BG3's combat used an Mana system instead of 5E, I'd enjoy it way more as a whole - because Larian is very good. The game's beautiful, it's colorful, it's voice acted well, it has choice and consequence, it has replayability, it's great. Just not for me.

TL;DR: Baldur's Gate 3 does a lot of things well, but those things it does well are Larian things in spite of how garbage D&D 5e actually is, and I believe it gets a pass for the things it doesn't do well. Overrated, but I still respect it a ton.

Score: 85