Sooo in summary, no atmosphere, static dead world, no immersion, really bad story, even worse writing, weird homebrew mechanics, bad character pathing....50 more
So your feedback is to start over and change the whole story?
I don't think that's actionable.
What you can't escape is a static map with a bunch of things ploped on to interact with. You can ignore all the companions and the story to an extent.
My suggestion is make the world lived in and dynamic. It is amazing what a few small things like night/day and weather can add to a game. Imagine being given 2 days to decide to support or attack the druid camp otherwise they fight alone? Imagine just standing by and doing nothing because niether goody/baddy bullshit interst you? Imagine adding a very small item that allows a vampire to walk in the day? Or a special hood for the Drow instead of "the tadpole did it"? Imagine making the decisions you make in act 1 mean something IN ACT 1 instead of dead end after dead end? You do not progress in act one or learn anything or merit. Imagine convincing the Tieflings to preemptively attack the goblins?
Either or story arcs are not arcs if they are linear. You don't need 50,000 lines of dialogue to explain "you are stuck with the tadpole until....
However Larian have added absolutely nothing of substance since day 1 so DOS3 is what we are getting.
