Review - The Witcher 2

I got The Witcher 2 for Christmas, and I'd heard a lot of high praise for it, out here in the internets. So I had my expectations pretty high.
But at the same time I had my expectations pretty low. I'd just finished playing the first in the series. I finished it, even though the game was far from over; I quit only a few hours in due to clunky combat, overuse of cut-scenes and just plain terrible dialogue. I player much longer than I feel like I should have, but the ambition of the project kept pulling me in. I could tell that they'd put a lot of effort into the product, and it all had a lot of potential.
And I think The Witcher 2 is the result of them figuring out a lot of different things and honing their craft and style. The combat is smooth and intricate, with a number of subtle nuances. The dialogue is leagues better, as is the story's structure. In Witcher 3 I think they'll finally close the gap.
The plot is left largely up to Geralt and the player. In the prologue you get to choose which part of the frame story to do first, second and last. Does this choice change anything? No, not really. But it does set up how the story is going work. The player is going to get some choice. This one isn't too important, it's skin deep, but it is classy. Unless this was designed by sheer chance, it seems evident the designers knew what they were doing.
While I absolutely love how much of the story and Geralt's character is put into the hands of the player, I think the execution is slightly flawed. Cut-scene overload. There are only one or two choices of major import that aren't made during or around cutscenes.
There are just too many cutscenes in general, and I wish that they'd spread out the conversation over some of the crazy-long walks. For instance, when Geralt and Iorveth going to the last city in the game, why not have them walk and talk? Instead of a long conversation and a long walk, put them into one thing. It would be great if the game would go slow-mo in the same way it does when you are choosing sword, sign, etc. Learn from House.
I think some of this is just a resources problem, that they couldn't get everything into the game that they wanted. I understand that, but I think some of their desires were misplaced: I never used any oils or bombs, yet I found them everywhere. I rarely used potions, and when I did it nearly never mattered. And while their skill tree is an elegant one, I actually wish it had been smaller and that less levels were given over the course of the game. Geralt is supposed to be world-renowned at the beginning of the game, so how can he improve that much? If they'd made more subtle the equipment, the crafting, the levels and skills, completely removed bombs, traps, potions, trophies, then I think they
would be much closer to creating the game I think they wold have liked to make.
And I wish that Geralt had been a little less static. You can argue that because Geralt has to be flexible to account for the player's choices, but Iorveth, Roche, Saskia- they all seem to be pretty complex characters. I think part of the problem is that Geralt's voice-actor – or maybe just that voice – doesn't really work well with many emotions other than brooding or skulking. I do have to say, however, that they didn't make the mistake of confusion “brooding anti-hero” with “complete asshole.”
But again, I have to stress this: The Witcher 2 is not a bad game. The world, the characters, the politics, all of that stuff is really awesome, as is the combat. It's just that so much of the content in the game seems to be without cause, other than as fluff, at the sacrifice of the real meat of the game.

Concept (and the ambition behind it): 10/10
Execution: 6/10