I think playing as a Draconic sorcerer is the easiest way to get into it. You get to choose a Dragon color with an associated element, which a feels a little bit like the Sorcerer version an oldschool Wizard choosing their specialist school. The bonus lvl1 spell from the lineage is mostly flavor, but the AC bonus from scales is pretty handy and you get a powerup at lvl 6 that makes your elemental damage more potent, flight at lvl 11, and some other Sorcerer perks along the way.
At lvl 4, distant spell, twinned spell and quicken are pretty good for Meta Magic taken in that order. I think they give the most bang for the buck. Distant spell is probably the most useful overall because it allows you to edgepan spell attacks and open fights outside of enemy range. Basically so you can kite the opponent around and force them to waste a turn closing the distance.
Otherwise if it's close quarters twinned spell or quicken for the double whammy. At lvl 4 stuff like Chromatic Orb or Ice Knife are good for twin spell. Distant spell works well for everything, especially AoE and CC spells or just burst damage to get the drop on the enemy. Depending on the difficulty chosen spells that have rays or missiles hurled from very far away can break the unbreakable buffs later on which is nice. It's also pretty helpful for dealing with enemy counterspells, since if you open with the distant meta you won't have to worry about that stuff as much.
Heighten is also very good during the endgame for stuff like Hold Person/Hold Monster to immobilize and crit. Wizard will always have more variety on offer with their expanded spell list, but the game changers are pretty much all there in terms of the Sorcerer spell list. I think it's nice for this game to build your list around your favorite concentration spells since they all compete with each other. For example, if you are building around Haste (pretty optimal for most of the game) then you'll want to have other direct attack spells to complement that, which aren't going to have you breaking Haste and going lethargic by accident. So like you might switch Cloud of Daggers for Haste at lvl 5, or set it up for Haste + Fireball or Ray of Fire upcasted, as opposed to say Haste + Fire Wall, where you'd have competing concentration spells. Replace spell at lvl up is pretty key for the class just to make sure you have a balance between concentration and direct attack type spells, a good summon or ritual/daily to round things out.
I think Sorcerer competes with Wizard for the top spot in terms of raw power at the level cap, least for the full casters. Clerics and Druids are comparable I think in terms of what they can bring to bear, but Bards and Warlocks are missing some of the more OP spells at the high end. You can get some of those spells from other means though, like from feats or scrolls so it's sort of a wash there. Flavorwise, playing as a Bard feels pretty novel next to the other casters cause you'll be strumming an instrument probably, whereas Wizards and Sorcerer kinda got the same vibe going on and identical kit for the most part.
The pitfall of the Wizard is always sorta the same here, with a bunch of known spells, but where I don't end up using half of them. Then you got Gale sorta stealing the spotlight as well, similar to Edwin in BG1/2 where it's just tough playing in his shadow. Sorcerer forces me to pick a focus, usually around 1 type of damage if doing the dragon thing, but if I run into problems with enemy resistances can always go back to the Chromatic orb in a pinch hehe. If you respec later on with Withers to make a different choice, the Dragon and Storm robe designs are harder to come by, whereas the Chaos robes with the sleeves you can pick up here and there by Act II. Just depends on the look you like most I guess.
