Yes, in my playthrough I went through Grimforge, had one scripted encounter with shadows, after which I was lead to Last Light, and immediately got sent out to make shadowcurse a non-issue. My issues are twofold:
1) In act1 Halsin makes it sound as if gong through Underdark will help us bypass the Shadowcurse. However, it is more or less the same, whenever you take underground route or not. IF underdark took you directly too Moonrise, I think it would make more sense.
2) While someone complained to the contrary couple days ago, I also found Shadowcurse to be a non issue - the initial area is easily braved with a simple torch or "cast light", and the first thing you are likely to do, grants you complete immunity to the curse.

I can't say that I have a helpful suggestion, but it seems to me like Larian commited to have Shadowcurse, before figuring out how to make it fun. Just on of the things that feels like it was backpedaled on between EA release three years ago, and now.