I hope there will be a Prologue telling us what we were doing before being taken by the mindflayers, rather than where we came from etc.
To tell a custom made character's story seems like a lot of work but explaining that a character found themselves in Baldur's Gate or in front of the gates before it happened. Anywhere really, anywhere but a spelljammer right away.

Let people arrive in the world first before everything explodes around you. I can see that my character is surviving incredible odds but I can't take it seriously.
Anything but showing higher level content that apparently only serves as a set-piece and not interesting gameplay.

And really work the tadpole angle, dont throw it away by having everyone know about it and not having any escalating symptoms. Mindflayers are great at anything mind related but they can't make the insertion moment of the tadpole a bit more fuzzy to remember, so we can puzzle it back together?

Having people start in Baldur's Gate, teasing players with the city, have them go window shopping and then take it away again. During these first few minutes you can teach the player about the controls and maybe give a few pointers to where one lives.

Or have the player fight something realistic first, a bunch of goblins that don't have more hp and explosives, barely escaping before then being abducted.
Those goblins with explosives are great though.

The start weak right now and for me it's mostly due to not being able to arrive in the world and look around first a little. And surviving the dragon breath at level 1.