So, finished the game (on core, about 200h), here are some short thoughts, mostly vis a vis Kingmaker.
For a buildfag it’s a spectacular game, and will be even better when it’s patched so more than half the feats/abilities work correctly. I’m eagerly waiting for the release of the roguelike mode.
There are some nice encounters, particularly boss fights, that are challenging and interesting, but overall there are too many uninspiring, copy-pasted ones, especially at the latter parts of game. That fact combined with the nonexistent AI makes it a real shame, as it hampers the enjoyment of your creatively built party in actual combat situations, when mostly everything has stats, immunities and innate abilities up the ass to make up for lackluster composition and scripting.
Story wise it starts abysmally, basically mandating a demon playthrough so you can cull all those pathetic, degenerate NPCs that boss you around, but it gets better later, and chapter 4 was quite nice (the roating camera gimmick was cool there if I’m being honest). Still, Kingmaker was far ahead in this department. The central theme was not as intriguing as Kingmaker’s curses one, but maybe with different choices it shines more. Companions are on par with Kingmaker, with some stand out ones like Regill. Reactivity, especially along the mythic paths is great and miles ahead of anything in Kingmaker. And since mythic paths besides story offer gameplay variety, it makes it a very replayable game (if you can stomach going through some of the worst stretches again).
The crusade minigame is a joke.
Music is amazing.
It is quite buggy still, if you’re interested just wait.
All in all, the character building is so good it makes it worth playing, but it is a step down from Kingmaker in almost every other way.