I respectfully disagree. D&D holds a mystique for many that no other IP can fill. I have played so many CRPGs, even DoS2 and just could not stop thinking "man I wish this was D&D."
This is something most younger gamers do not understand. Back in the EARY days of computer gaming three primary genre drove game development. Simulations, Streatgey Gaming and RPGs. In the RPG Genre DnD was not just a driving force, it was THE driving force. The impact of using the DnD IP cannot be overstated as it drove in newer players due to the recent DnD boom and pulled back old school gamers remembering fondly those days when computers let us step away from dice and charts.
If you pulled DnD from this game, took the story out of the realms and tweaked it around another game world. It would be considered a good game, no doubt but the sales numbers would have been around a 3rd of what they have been if they where lucky. This is not to dimmish the work Larian has done, this is just to say the DnD inclusion is a key component to the success.
