The game has a very strong streak of DOS2 philosophy at its core, from how the environment is made, to encounters, to cheesing in fights, to origin characters, to a complete lack of BG elements... and I am neither talking about something simple as re-using assets, code or balancing issues within action economy. (Non surprisingly) the DOS-dev team approaches every issue infront of them like they did it in DOS and then adjusts it for D&D 5e rules and polishes it with their own understanding of what is fun (=DOS).
Overall I really regret getting this game, for I didn't want to play a DOS game ever again. On the other hand from, a professional standpoint, it is interesting to get an insight into the development of this ambitious project that most likely will be again well accepted by a large market while leaving both DOS and BG hardcore fans disappointed.
As someone who could be called a hardcore DOS fan (though I've only played DOSII. On the other hand, I beat it about five times, plus went seven or eight times through early access and wrote a lot of the TV Tropes page for it (including quite a bit of the stuff about Sebille, more on BG I and II in a second), I am not at all disappointed, so I'm not sure if you've overstated your opinion by applying a too wide brush to opinions fans of DOS and BG or I'm just unique (and I doubt there's any way to know short of interviewing a random sample of about 1% of BG III buyers).*
On BG I and II, while I only cleared the first one once and the second one I only got about halfway through before getting bored (I'll explain why in a different thread), I can say that I see a lot of BG and D&D in this game already. Do things need to be changed up to make a better fit? Hell yeah! Does it play like DOS with a D&D skin on top or just using DOS solutions to all problems? Only if I focus on the most obvious (and in some cases, most superficial) details. Scratching the surface, I feel like it's very much a modernized BG with elements of Dragon Age in it (the origin story: basically going from a skilled nobody (in most origins) to part of something bigger without any choice in the matter, as the player character did in DA:O, though this time from the villainous side and fully animated and voiced character dialogue and cutscenes, both of which BG I and II and DOS II lacked). Also, I'm sure more ties into BG I and II will be made as we actually get closer to (and eventually into) Baldur's Gate.
* Really that's a problem I keep seeing here, people treating their own experiences and opinions as the baseline, most broadly accepted, applicable ones. It's why I always am careful to state I'm only speaking for myself, because I am. It's also why I challenge people who seem to make that mistake.
