Let me start by saying that i was totally new to the franchise, i tried to get into it earlier but was ultimately offput by the age and clunkyness of the first game. However i knew that the witcher series was highly praised by the gaming world and didn't want to directly dive into the third game without knowing anything that's happend so far. So i watched the Cutscene Movies of Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 . I highly recommend watching these if you had no interest or opportunity to play the first two games of the series, it's not necessary but you'll miss lots of references in Witcher 3.

• Rich Lore & vast universe:
  Returning places & characters from the first 2 games, many books, full bestiary & NPC log that updates depending how you advance in the game.
  
  
• Interesting Quest Design:
  No boring fetch quests or kill X numbers or Monster Z, most quests add to the story and make you feel like you are really changing the world. All dialogues are voiced.
  
  
• Choices matter!
  While most of the quests are meant to be finished in one way (like Monster contracts) there are several side and mainquests that change the course of the game, sometimes significantly. There are 3 different main endings, if you count in sidequests the number goes up to 36 unique end scenarios. The replayability is enormous.
  
  
• Graphics:
  Beautiful scenery, attention to detail, facial expressions in dialogues.
  
  
• Vibrant World:
  Lively cities, nests of monsters, ancient ruins with epic loot, guarded by a large variety of creatures.
  
  
• Fluid fighting:
  Directly switch into combat, move between multiple targets or lock the camera onto one to pick them up one by one.
  
  
• Many ways to approach fighting:
  Each level you can spend one point to activate or improve an already activated skill. There is the traditional fighting tree where you improve your sword and crossbow skill aswell as improve your overall survivability. The second tree consists abilities concerning your signs (magic) while the third tree focusses on alchemy, using and improing your bombs and enhancement potions. In addition to that the fourth tree has general abilities that improve main aspects of the game like beeing able to carry more loot or improve the duration of food regeneration.
  
  
• Exploration:
  Huge maps, hidden caves, chests at the bottom of the sea, you get rewarded if you roam the wilderness, sometimes you encounter enemies that are way too strong for your current level, place a marker and return once you advanced in the story.
  
  
• Gwent:
  The game in the game, collect all cards from merchants and innkeepers and enjoy a round of cardgame between your monsterhunts.
  
  
• Long playtime:
  Doing everything took me more or less: 80h basegame - 20h first DLC - 40h second DLC. So you get tons of entertainement for your money.
  
  
• DLCs worth it:
  Buy the Game of the year edition which consists all available DLCs aswell as both big expansions. Nothing more satisfying than the finisher animations. Both Expansions also have different endings.
  
  
• Crafting & enhancement:
  If you dont want to chase for every thing on the map you can also buy or craft equipment, the higher rarity equipment has sockets where you can add gems that add additional effects such as burning, poisoning or improve the effect of your signs

• Bug Maingame: Race: The Great Erasmus Vegelbud Memorial Derby
  Once you won the 3 races you are approached by one of Cleavers men. Create a savefile before you speak to Cleaver as he will ask you to participate in a 4th race that directly starts after the conversation. It can't be repeated and will lock you out of an achievement if you don't win it. My game bugged out at that quest and i could only continue after the race was finished
  
  
• Bug Maingame: Quest: Hidden in the depths
  Once you find the body and loot the Note and chestkey, the quest is marked as finished although you haven't found the treasure yet. My fault for not directly exploring further as i recycled the key and later found the chest which i wasnt able to loot anymore
  
  
• Bug Blood & Wine: Treasure Hunt: The Last Exploits of Selina's Gang
  If you explore and loot the chest before the quest tells you to do so, you won't be able to finish the quest anymore
  
  
• Minor: Crafting diagrams are not sorted
  And no way of sorting for rarity, level or sets. Would have been easy to implement as other menues in inventory have the sort feature
  
  
• Minor: Lack of unique Weapons.
  There are no weapons with unique abilities in the Main Game. The first DLC has one unique Steel weapon und the second DLC has one unique Silver weapon. That's it
  
  
• Minor: Crossbow
  Clunky to aim, hitbox seems all over the place, not a big hindrance since you can auto aim when using it under water
  
  
• Major: Achievement: Master Marksman
  While all achievements are reasonable and somewhat easily accesible, Master Marksman requires you to kill 50 humans with a headshot using a crossbow. It's a huge grindfest that's even more frustrating because of the clunky controls while the head hitbox seems nonexistant. I stood 2 feet away from my enemy, targetting right on his head (or slightly above) and it still wasnt registered as a headshot. Wiki tells you to switch Maps (Velen><Wyzima) and farm Devil's Pit over and over. I did that for more or less 3 hours before almost giving up as most of the time was used switching zones to respawn the bandits. Luckily i found a youtube video of someone farming this achievement on Skellige where you can avoid zone switching as the 2 bandits on that spot keep respawning almost instantly. Here i finished the last 15 Headshots in less than 15 min
  

Worth every penny! The only regret i have is playing my first run in story mode. That made most of the fights rather unchallenging, as i wasn't forced to use any oils or bombs for the vast majority of the game. Apart from the above mentioned bugs and minor annoyances everything went smooth. 140 hours+ might seem quite a lot but honestly i felt sadness when i finished everything and my journey was over, i enjoyed every hour. A must buy for every Open World Fantasy RPG fan.

Time to start a run on death march difficulty to finish the last 2 achievements :)