Not like Baldur's Gate. Didn't have the same exciting factor i was was looking for.
Neverwinter Nights, as may be guessed by those who are familiar with the Forgotten Realms setting, is set in Neverwinter. The city is suffering from a great plague and it's your job, as a new academy apprentice, to find the components and save it from disaster. And although the story does develop and eventually get better, there is no epic feeling at any section of the game which is made worse by the fact that you can hack your way through just about any monster in the game.
Unlike Baldur's Gate and its sequels, no thought has to be put into the gameplay. It's more of an action game as opposed to a role-playing one. Playing as a spellcaster makes is much more interesting however, because spells have different effects on different enemies and there is more challenge in that you have less health.
Characters interaction is altogether pretty poor as well. The oppurtunities to blatantly insult someone and other such comments are few and far between now and barely any of these have consequences any more either. By far the worst however is the lacking of any party whatsoever. You can employ a mercenary but you can't actually tell him to do anything. You now have the equivalent of 1 1/4 characters. This henchman can't even die because if he does you just find him back at the current base when you teleport back!
The sound in Neverwinter Nights lacks the intensity of the Baldur's Gate games too. It's all fairly generic much like the graphics. The new 3D engine is nice too but characters look fairly blurry and uninteresting and, especially urban environments, look pretty boring.
So, why do I rate this an 8 with all the negative comments I have given it? Simply because, much like other reviewers have said, once you get over the fact that it is not Baldur's Gate, it seems to get better, and you start to realise it's not so bad at all.