I don't have a "pure" perspective on this since when I played full release I already knew Gale was there, because back in EA the scene would just trigger when you walked by it.
I do think it's a fair assumption that it should be a bit more obvious, I do have several friends who left Gale behind because the game says the portal is dangerous.
I think that kind of stuff is quite common with newbie gamers too, I've recently played most of BG3 with a non-gamer friend and she had really interesting conclusions. She would see that a portal is dangerous and think "well then I guess I shouldn't touch it" while people who game a lot deduce there's at the very least something worthwhile there, otherwise it wouldn't be in the game.
