I'm someone with several years of experience with cRPGs, a modest understanding of D&D and I certainly do not think I could make it through the game without Shadowheart and Lae'zel.
I killed Lae on my second character because I hated her on my first try because she is a stupid evil rage machine. Shadowheart is useful for acting as a bind tank and I take her along for that (she got Lae's plate armor) but her spells fail most of the time or do not matter so I don't really care for her(her personality is at least a bit wittier than the vampire torture porn fetichist and the aforementioned stupid evil warrior so I do not cringe every time she opens her mouth). The wizard is stupid but useful for crowd control. The warlock is useful for starting encounters. I can't bring myself to care for them beyond their carrying capacity and body mass to trick the AI in wasting turns they should use to take me down.
The game is beautiful, the plot interesting and I love cthulhumanoids but the party has far less personality combined than the red prince from Divinity Original Sin 2 and I loved that you could play the original characters in multiplayer. If that would be possible in this game I guess I could even like stupid Githyanki and emo vampire because playing as them might endear them to me.
Solo kill list: One stupid evil (displayed alignment) Githyanki warrior, a dark grove, a Zhentarim hideout full of "experienced" rogues, half a Goblin camp including two hobgoblins, two minotaurs, a bunch of underworld monsters and their wannabe sorcerous overlord
