Tremendous story telling and decent Dragon Age Origins type gameplay help you forget the many flaws.
I'm ashamed to say that I have yet to read the actual Game of Thrones books but I'm absolutely hooked on the television series. My hat goes off to George Martin because it seems like he genuinely cares about the world he's created and he keeps a tight lid on everything coming out of his books. Watching the special features of GoT Season 1 you really get a sense of how much he's involved in the show. Similarly he was greatly involved in the story of this game (he also has a cameo appearance) and it really shows. This game has authentic GoT characters, brilliant villains and a rich GoT story that certainly does the show justice. I found it interesting that one character is just so much more likeable both story wise and gameplay wise, but that's just holding true to the spirit of GoT.
I would go so far as to say that the game added to my enjoyment of the show because it gave me a different perspective on the happenings and other characters of the world. Admittedly it may not be as eye-opening to someone who has read the books, but I learned a lot of new details about the world. How many movie/tv tie-ins can make that claim, that they actually add to the source material? Most are happy if they don't completely embarrass the license.
That being said, this game is missing a ton of polish. The graphics, controls, gameplay, level design… you name it, this game has something very wrong with it unfortunately hampering the many positives. For example, the great story is held back by brutal graphics, glitches, bad transitions and inconsistent voice acting. Aside from maybe a dozen main characters everyone else in the game recycles the same six faces, which completely throws you off. Also letting dead bodies sit in the streets for several chapters and weeks of in game time was pretty weird. Another example, I really liked the character building (especially balancing positive and negative traits) and rpg aspects, but some elements aren't laid out very well. The dialogue choices are interesting and seem to have an immediate impact, but sometimes it's difficult to discern what you're actually choosing and there is only one true story choice in the game.
I actually really loved the gameplay, but I could see people not liking it. It's a modern take on turn based rpgs, like Dragon Age Origins but even better due to the slight urgency. Like everything else it could use some polish and depth. Certain aspects don't work that well, like switching targets, but overall it was interesting and hit my sweet spot. Here's to hoping Dragon Age 3 is exactly like this game and the ugly Dragon Age 2 days are forgotten.
The thing about this slower, strategic combat is that you're fighting fewer enemies and that makes sense within the story. Your hero against five guys feels like it should. I'm pretty sticky about this issue and it really bothers me in games like Dragon Age 2 and Uncharted where you have hundred of goonies jumping out of thin air to fill in levels for no reason. It doesn't rationally make sense that someone would hire one thousand soldiers for a mountain expedition, or a supposedly secret society would have thousands of suited up goons on salary, or that there would be tens of thousands of bandits living in one small city, outnumbering the population by one hundred to one, just waiting to jump a heavily armed squad of god killing heroes for their pocket change. Who pays them? What do they eat? How many of them had families? I think that's why zombies are so popular in video games because zombies provide you with an endless supply of enemies and conscience free killing.
I know I'm on my own when it comes to this issue but it destroys the immersion for me. Never once in this game did I feel like I was a psychopath. The amount of enemies made sense. Whenever you fought, it felt true to the story. GoT would not have worked as some zany God of War button masher. To me that's really important and a good sense of scale gives a huge amount of satisfaction to both the combat and the narrative. There's no Final Fantasy type cutscenes where your heroes are cornered and surrender to six soldiers… the same soldiers you just spent hours massacring literally hundreds of. One scene has the two main characters cornered by eight armoured soldiers and you don't feel cheated because if they let the scene play out you would probably die.
Despite the many flaws I would almost insist that any GoT fan play this game, at least as a rental or a discount buy. If the combat doesn't work for you then it may be a slog, but if you're like me and you appreciate a good rpg then this is very interesting and satisfying. I assume they had a great story with a small budget and did the best job they could. There are games that just look freaking lazy and games, like this, that look like they hit a ceiling and did they best they could with limited resources. It shows that they cared enough to try and make a decent game and try to do justice to the GoT material.