I mentioned somewhere else that Act 1 reminds me most of the escape from Irenicus' dungeon, with everything possibly coming to a head at Moonrise. I think I feel that way because the initial dungeon crawl is a very on-rails segment of that game (as you might expect in the beginning).
Everything in the Grove area is very fun and interesting, there are a number of ways to resolve the grove-tiefling-goblin conflict but I still don't feel the same kind of gratification I did in Baldur's Gate discovering things while trudging through the Terra Incognita, nor the sense of activity and possibility that could be found in every nook and cranny of Athkatla in BG:II. I don't know why that is, there's hours of quests and NPCs to find in the EA, I wonder if my perspective is skewed now because of how much time I've played in it.
The EA isn't really about giving us a feel for the game, it's about testing encounters and finding broken features, so I feel most of the 'comparison' threads are premature; but what do I know.
Another factor is how much you see being set up in EA, that will pay-off later, leaving you with a lot of things to speculate on.
