And realistically I think this opening (an escaped prisoner freed during a 3rd party attack on our captor) is virtually the same as BG2, so claiming it isn't in line with the franchise seems dubious. Are you really saying you want LESS Dragons in your Dungeon and Dragons?
One need to point out, that BG2 was a sequel, and we were already playing a pretty battle hardened character, not a level1 noobie. I have also heard claims that enemies in the tutorial that we fight and kill with ease are nerfed high level enemy.
I do think that on narrative level opening of BG3 is a lot - alien ship, alien dragon mounting hunters, eye infecting parasites - a lot of unrelatable alien stuff. I think you could pull of a start of the game like that, but I don't think it's handled effectively in EA. It needs more horror - not in terms of gore (BG3 has enough of that already), but tension, threat, atmosphere. More importantly, I don't think the game manages to paint mindflayers as a credible threat. I think that hanging around the mindflayer at the end is a big mistep, that robs them of any mistique or danger. Even more so killing one yourself in the crashsite - sure, if is wounded, but it still doesn't help in making it feel less threatning.
