Having taken off my rose-colored glasses and played through the entire game several times, I’m going to write a balanced and unembellished review.
The game can truly be called breathtaking in terms of atmosphere. Picturesque locations, vibrant cities, excellent dialogues and plot. At maximum graphics settings, what happens on the screen, coupled with excellent sound, is amazing.
All these qualities could be put to the fore if we were considering a film. They are certainly important for the overall experience of the game. True, the developers were completely unable to implement even slightly interesting gameplay in such a wonderful world. Roll - hit - roll - sign... This is all the gameplay in The Witcher 3. You may not believe me, but the gameplay in Skyrim is much more interesting than in any of the Witchers. In Skyrim there is at least some variety of weapons, in addition, a huge number of screams, spells, racial features, and I have not yet mentioned the opportunity to become a vampire, werewolf, etc. Skyrim is much more enjoyable to play because of the abundance of possibilities. You can always find something new. Tell me, what kind of shouts, spells, etc., when witchers have a strict set of abilities, practically no different from each other? How can I put it more simply? The witcher's abilities could be much more variable. The signs could be more powerful (the same igniting igni looks like a dragon farted, and not like a cool sign), the preset of blade attacks was not so monotonous (even Geralt’s animations are sometimes no better than Skyrim’s, although I may be exaggerating a little), etc. And here we have gorgeous graphics, atmosphere and storytelling, but just catastrophically boring gameplay.
Summing up, I can safely say that this game is a graphical, story-oriented masterpiece. However, the whole taste of this work seems to be deliberately spoiled by the quality of the gameplay, which is diametrically opposed to the plot.