I am the first to admit that the first game was a deep and fun adventure, which perfectly updated the old cRPGs and brought them to a modern audience.
I have played maybe half of the alpha so far and thought that it was fairly similar to the first game.
However, as exciting as all the new gameplay options sound (and I realize how many people will bash me for this), but many of these genuinely feel like overkill. The addition of runeword crafting and skill crafting with each character having their own background and intent (hence affecting dialogue choices in that manner) plus a whole lot of other additions makes a great game feel overcrowded. Frankly, to me, it doesn't feel seemless. It feels like a lot of cool things are being added on for the sake of the "cool factor". But I wish a far greater focus was on crafting a deep and rich storyline over the gameplay modifications/additions.
Again, the game hasn't been released yet, but it actually feels a bit crowded right now. Many storyline items don't even seem to have much reference at the moment, so a fresh player can screw up without realizing. For example, the urns by withermoore's urn don't provide much clue that they might be useful for source points later, and shouldn't be destroyed immediately.
Maybe a ramble, just my 2 c. Regardless, I write only for feedback purposes, not to trash.
Best luck to the Larian team.
