Larian's flaw is that they think they can get away with this kind of haphazard world building. They don't understand the significance of logic and structure here.
Players not familiar with D&D don't know what an Intellect Devourer is supposed to be. Even so, it's a huge stretch SH survived 4 of the creatures we fought at the crash site unscathed.
But the haphazard world building goes so much deeper than that with the "archdruids", epic level 1 companions, and all the high level content being pushed into low level play (mind flayers, vampires, dragons, devils, adamantine golems etc. etc.). They have absolutely no patience to pace themselves and go from small to epic to reap big rewards later. Instead, everything is always epic, players become numb and nothing is truly big or epic in the game anymore.
As for this "go big or go home attitude" they seem to have.. I liked Gale at first, but when he told his ridiculous story about Mystra I literally rolled my eyes and stopped liking him or believing him as a character.
If you've played D:OS you know that this is what Larian is and does.
They do fun but completely over the top turn based combat - and absurd and poorly written stories.
The fact they even have some companions who are interesting and really well voice acted is a solid win and completely unexpected given where they've come from.
Act 2&3 will get little player feedback and will likely be rushed and incomplete, but I'm still holding out hope somehow despite all the evidence they'll stick the landing.
And if they don't the combat is still fun, even with the current flaws.
