First hours were fun, but the drag started after then.
The gameplay was fun, and I already was looking forward to see the great casting animations, the great force and impact of them, with your char bending in all directions and tensing, really are something exclusively special of KoA:R I've been missing in similar games.
The story got me hooked - the premise of a hero with amnesia, though often used, can really be a good frame (e.g. see Planescape: Torment).
The loot, oh, how I love that what was promised about and seemed to be the loot system. Unique items with unique models, with a unique feel to them. And so many! Great!
But well.... having played around 12 hours, I've put the game down:
The story, the main quests, while in small parts entertaining (e.g. House of Ballads quest line), just feels like dry dialogues prompted by keywords, no real heartfelt interaction. Almost all of the mysteriously named threats and villains (e.g. "Maybe it was The Willow, stories of which were read to scare children since decades...") turn out to be your standard character models with nothing interesting to say. Just to mention it by the way: The brutality of stealth and reckoning combat feels unmotivated.
The side quests, making the greatest part of the game, are just "terrible trivia", urging you to run / fast travel all over the world map again and again, with no really convincing motive: Just collecting letters and books and punching small mobs in really many similar caves: for HOURS and HOURS without any end. Which leads us to the gameplay:
With regard to the gameplay, while running around you actually don't face so many enemies, often just small mobs. That means it doesn't really feel like an action game in the end, more like a "running-around" game.
The combat seems to regrettably follow the motto "make the first 5 minutes fun and then repeat the gameplay". Because repeat it does. Over and over again. Even with switching your "destinies", i.e. playstyles between rogue, wizard and fighter, (with all of their moves you can look up right from the start) it somehow stays the same without much evolution, especially with regard to the encounters: It's almost always the same SMALL MOBS you encounter and easily cut down with the same combos. Better designed encounters, scenarios, and grouping of enemies REALLY could have helped the game to be WAY MORE fun in combat, delivering something unexpected at least. Especially because something like this missing, just "planting 5 mobs here and there", the game feels like it was done without any love for detail or any real affection from the developers.
And yes, also the loot can almost always be *expected*: Mostly random junk. Even the few nice looking unique items I got (3 to 4 pieces) while playing just drowned in the mountains of frustrating garbage loot. "Oh, there's a hidden entrance with a chest that's locked very hard...." And what's inside? Nothing! A gem and a health potion. Time and time again. Frustrating. And even these unique items follow the same stat-design you get to know in the first hour (+x%damage to lightning/fire/ice), nothing unexpected except the looks, making the gameplay even more repetitive. Anyone know the game "Silver" by Spiral House from 1999? When you finally got the two swords from the villain Fudge? Oh, THAT was precious loot with CONTEXT. I really do miss something like this. Loot that isn't just random, but matters.
In summary I'd say KoA:R, although almost aiming for the right spots in the beginning, felt like a production-pipeline game. So in the end, I left the (in my humbled opinion) very repetitive game with the feeling that it just stole some precious hours without giving anything really valuable back.