I never made it past Chapter 2, so take the following with a pinch of salt.

Icewind Dale is a dungeon crawler and nothing but. Baldur's Gate 1 had about 3 (three) dungeons that you have to visit for plot reasons and 0 (no) dragons, and this game is 80% dungeons and it probably has way more dragons (that I never got to see). Multi-level caves and crypts with high quality assets, lots of varied combat encounters (not just packs of rats swarming towards you), you can see your party noticeably progress in terms of gear and level every couple of hours or so. If you really like the kind of combat Infinity engine games offer (every agent gets to perform one action every 5 seconds), then this may be THE game for you, I'd say it beats BG1 and Planescape Torment in that department, fair and square.

How come is this a negative review then? There is not much else to do. I really like quests that give you choices or that have multiple solutions, and IWD has barely any of that. The only way to make an evil party stand out from a good one is to slaughter the people in every hub you visit. Boilerplate, impersonal plot (the great evil is about to awaken, pls stop it). No character interaction whatsoever. Your only break from all that combat is the bit where you return to the hub area to sell some loot and then get back, a couple of minutes.

Maybe it's the game for someone, but it wasn't the game for me.

I never made it past Chapter 2, so take the following with a pinch of salt. Icewind Dale is a dungeon crawler and nothing but. Baldur's Gate 1 had about 3 (three) dungeons that you have to visit for plot reasons and 0 (no) dragons, and this game is 80% dungeons and it probably has way more dragons (that I never got to see). Multi-level caves and crypts with high quality assets, lots of varied combat encounters (not just packs of rats swarming towards you), you can see your party noticeably progress in terms of gear and level every couple of hours or so. If you really like the kind of combat Infinity engine games offer (every agent gets to perform one action every 5 seconds), then this may be THE game for you, I'd say it beats BG1 and Planescape Torment in that department, fair and square. How come is this a negative review then? There is not much else to do. I really like quests that give you choices or that have multiple solutions, and IWD has barely any of that. The only way to make an evil party stand out from a good one is to slaughter the people in every hub you visit. Boilerplate, impersonal plot (the great evil is about to awaken, pls stop it). No character interaction whatsoever. Your only break from all that combat is the bit where you return to the hub area to sell some loot and then get back, a couple of minutes. Maybe it's the game for someone, but it wasn't the game for me.