The combat is a bit of a nightmare at lower levels, it does get better as you learn new moves. I prefer it this way, unlike Oblivion you really feel like your improving as the character gains experience. The most important thing is timing, keep your shield up and only drop it to make a well timed strike or series of strikes. Don't take on large numbers of enemies at once, carry plenty of healing potions and be prepared to run away. I've been playing it for a few days now and I'm really enjoying it, yes I die a lot but it's easy to quicksave the game autosaves enough not to make it that much of a problem. I think this is going to be one of those games people will either love or hate. I can't really comment on stability, my game is solid but I do know some people are having issues.

From reading the feedback in a german forum, the game seems to be significantly harder than Gothic 2 with its add-on - and that was quite a deadly combination back in the day. "Kiting" is absolutely essential in the mid/late game [ kiting explained ].

You just need to get the timing right. Don't click like a mad man, click in the rhythm of your swing and your character will do his combos much faster. Other than that, learn to block and dodge. Blocking is as simple as holding right click, dodging is just a double tap. Since the first enemies are those bird things, it's best to wait for them to attack first then follow with a combo. Combat is not a guessing game at all. If after you get the hang of it something appears too hard for you, then it probably is, so forget about it for now and move on with other quests/areas.

As for the woman, how can you even tell she's a boring archetype? Actually, she's not even a main character or anything, and you only exchange a few lines then leave her to wander off on your own, only catching a glimpse of her much later on if you even care to know of her. She's not deep enough to be an archetype, she's just a stranger you don't interact with beyond that starting area (after you talk to Jan is the last you concern yourself with her, unless you wanna go back and infrorm her someone's gonna come get her later, she gives you a potion  then).

Like it was evident in my thread about the game, the demo is extremely limited (and therefor bad) and cuts off just as you go to the first quest hub area, whichever of the three you choose based on how you play.

You'll find combat is not your prime concern at all for a lot of the game as the quests have an adventure game feel to them (ok, there's a fair share of item fetch and enemy kill quests also, but a lot of them aren't). You look for clues, interact with NPCs, get items, trigger events, and so on, while deciding for whose benefit you do it and in what way you achieve that. Going in more detail would be borderline spoilers so I won't.

I don't see what you find so limiting in the skills. There's pretty much everything, from different melee and ranged weapons, to making a vast variety of magic scrolls and brewing potions (which need materials you get from plants and learning hunting for getting animal parts), crafting weapons and accessories (which need ingredients you get from mining mostly), lockpicking and pickpocketing, and whatever else. They may be more condensed than other games but they still allow for a great range of actions to match your play style and how you want to solve a given quest.

Enemies also don't respawn (aside from some wild life that repopulated cleared areas after I reached chapter 2), so the focus is certainly on exploring and questing than constant killing (though exploring obviously involves a fair share of that).

I would say the demo misrepresents the game because it's basically a tiny linear area that allows you to get the hang of the basic mechanics, like a tutorial, but doesn't give you a glimpse of the actual questing or exploring of more wide open areas.

" @Al3xand3r: My problem with the skills was just a lack of anything unique. You can train melee, ranged or magic. You can brew potions or learn stealth. It doesn't do anything that hundreds of RPGs have done before it. I've played a lot of RPGs and it's hard to get into a new one when I don't see the ability to make a new type of character. Something like KOTOR or Mass Effect are good examples of a character progression system that was innovative at the time. "