Hello, first time poster here. I've been a fan of Baldur's Gate and IE games since the first game, which I bought back when I couldn't really even speak english, hah. I still played it to death and subsequently also the other IE games up until IWD2. I've spent thousands of hours on the series (I consider all of the IE games a single series, a collection of campaigns in 2E D&D) and I cherish those memories. I also bought both NWN and NWN2 on release only to be dissapointed. I wasn't expecting a new Baldur's Gate, in game mechanics or game design but still those games just went in a direction I didn't care for.
That said, I just watched the gameplay video from Rock, Paper, Shotgun and I was blown away. To me it looks a lot like the original games, naturally not 1:1 since the original was hand painted backrounds but I think they've nailed the general aesthetics, something the NWN games really didn't. It really looks like D&D and Forgotten Realms to me, not just some generic fantasy world.
The turn based combat & team initiative is honestly a much better combat mode for the game than RT+pause. I still play the original games this day, but I use a mod called Sword Coast Stratagems that makes the game a lot more challenging, partly by giving enemy spellcasters the same advantages you have (pre-cast buffs & protection spells etc.). There's a reason they were nerfed in the original game: RT+pause is just not a very good system for tactical combat. You have to set the autopause settings very tight if you want full control over your characters, which makes the game super slow. Also the characters aren't super responsive, meaning that sometimes they don't act on their turn but on the next turn, which might mean they're dead. So, the IE games are great but the combat was somewhat chaotic, I always felt I lacked control over my characters.
I don't know if anyone remembers games like Jagged Allience 2 (the greatest turn based RPG ever made) or Temple Of Elemental Evil (great combat, flawed game otherwise) but both actually had better combat than the IE games due to being turn based. Now a game doesn't have to have tactical combat to be good, but I think that D&D with all the different abilities and characters works best when you have to most control in battle, which basically means turn based.
As fas as the rule system goes, does anyone really remember 2nd edition that fondly? It was rigid, nonsensical, illogical and didn't really fit a computer game well. Odd racial limits, a needlessly complicated ability score system (what were the designers smoking when they made the fighter strenght score system?) and the worst of all, Thaco. I learned it by playing and embraced it, but it wasn't a good system. D&D 5e looks to be much better suited for computer games. Hell, 3,5e was infinitely better for computer games.
So as an ANCIENT BG fan I say that based on what I've seen, this game looks like it could be the best D&D game we've had since the original IE games AND a possibly a worthy successor to BG3 (take this with a grain of salt, it depends a lot on the story and execution, BG's are so fondly remembered both due to being great games but also due to their epic scope. It remains to be seen if BG3 can pull both off.)
