Fun and frustrating!
The first one are responsible for the fun (good story, great crafting and mixing alchemy and spells, humor, different environments with plenty of monsters or humanoid enemies, eye candy cities and gear, etc.).
The second group like to insert frustrating elements (grinding, lock picking, big maps with as few as possible quests, level dependent gear and weapons, not enough materials to craft the high end armors/weapons, labyrinths) and, of course, a bad ending.
I like Tolkien`s books and TES games because they have consistency. In the last 5 years of so I`ve seen plenty of the neurotic ``I`m your father, Luke`` twists of story and the devs of TW 2 like the conspiracy theory all to much. Yes, it`s a poor choice to ignore the road taken as warrior, mage or archer for a badly designed ``let`s shoot the ballistae and run around a small tower like a headless chicken, hoping to avoid fireballs`` end. What is worse, in my opinion, the story make no sense whatsoever in chapter 4, because Gandohar is still a power hungry crazy tyrant, something the hero`s sister doesn`t seem to realize and Cassara the dragon to powerful to need help.
Why the road `till then, I ask myself?