It is a big issue, it is a major design flaw, and no it is not being overblown; Divinity players are not the only audience here, and indeed, given Swen's own comments they aren't even the target audience, since from Swen's own mouth their goal here is to leverage the fan bases of D&d and the Baldur's Gate name as people to draw in and foist their particular style of game-play and design onto - they want to use this to pimp their brand, not sell to their existing fans, and not to do justice or give respect to the existing franchises and IPs they're using to do it.
They've said for a long time that a rework is coming - but for more than a year now we've seen neither hide nor hair of it.
It
Is ridiculous that they've fussed over the UI and over cleaning up tooltips (poorly and ineffectively), without getting the reworks of major systems processed through and tested for so long. It's a legitimate worry, at this point.
Yes; reactions are an incredibly important part of the 5e D&D system - neglecting it is critical, as is leaving it in its present state; players need proper control of their reactions, it's absolutely vital. At least, it is, if Larian intend to actually deliver any kind of system that could legitimately call itself a 5e rule system... which is what they've advertised and sold copies based on the hype for, a long with the Baldur's Gate name. They've advertised that they want their game to be the definitive 5e d&d video game... they've literally said as much, so claims that they didn't 'promise' to make it 5e are deflecting and spurious at best; their advertised intent was clear, and their actual practice and design intent so far does not line up with what they sold copies based upon.
The
other game uses a direct prompt system to implement an almost accurate and spiritually faithful reaction system that works very well - it doesn't slow down gameplay, players are not drowned in prompts, and it's very smooth; videos of this have been posted numerous times, and the defenders continue to ignore them and repeat their tired old false arguments. It works fine in a turn based system; 5e is ideal for translation into video game format, in fact, needing only a few quality of life and transitional alterations and tweaks, as the other game neatly demonstrates.
You are right, OP, this is a major issue.
I'd encourage you to submit feedback to Larian reflecting your sentiment on this score, if you can spare the time and effort; you can use this link:
Feedback
