I will try to be objective here. A bit nagging, but objective. I would not give this game 9 or 10 out of 10, but I guess I can give it an 8.
I like the detalization level. It is at least close to what you can see in TES games. On the other hand, if you look closer you will see that some of the details are getting copy-pasted. This is not a bad thing per say, but at some point it may start to seem... Off.
The graphics are good. Not sure about optimization though: I am playing at 4k and the only option that seem to increase\decrease FPS is nVidia hair. On average I get around 22 FPS on 1 card. So overall it is good, but why other settings (like antialiasing) do not affect performance? Or is the effect that negligible? Not sure at the moment.
Open world. "New feature". While the world is big and beautiful indeed it seems emptier than even TES games without mods. It does suit the atmosphere though, but it still feels redundant. Especially if you get into sidequests, which are repetitive at their cores. I mean, Witcher's work may be repetitive by itself, so maybe that's ok, but in previous games side-quests could draw you in and make you feel involved. The choices were actually heavy there. So far I have not feel same way about any of the side-quests.
Also what about the day\night cycle and its effect on NPC? I distinctly remember that Drowners, for example, were nighttime creatures. And in general you encountered different species in different times. Now they all seem set, except maybe for noonwraiths. It's sad, that this feature seems to be removed. Even townsfolk do not hide during the night.
But back to open world. What is important for games like this? Transportation. Or rather the fluidity of covering several miles. Think about Assassin's Creed: you rarely cared about the distance, because the movement was fluid, fast, as if you covered whole map in one single motion. You never got bothered about the need to move and rarely used fast travel. Here... There is no fluidity. I understand that Geralt is not Ezio, but still: if a bump before you is 1 mm high you walk over it, if it's 2 mm high - you need to jump. If there are 2 trees before you with a gap about Geralt's shoulders' width - you need to walk around. If you are in water at least by an ankle - forget about getting on ground near you even if it's your butt high. I actually got stuck in a puddle of water because of that. Also speaking about fast travel: why do I need to find a fast travel point to travel to another fast travel point? Does that not make fast travel less "fast"? In the end Geralt feels like an elephant, rather than a trained athlete.
Speaking of fluidity of motions - fighting. You can't jump during a fight. Seems quite normal, right? Until you get in situation, when you are already being attacked from behind a small fence you can't destroy and you need to walk around it. Considering the fights can be pretty difficult even on "normal" difficulty quite often such wastefulness of motions means death. Also you can't fight drowners under water. So also quite often death. BTW monsters change their looks with their level. Slightly, but still a neat feature rarely used in games. But back to fighting: lack of fluidity affects combat dynamics greatly. Witchers are supposed to be highly trained and skilled, on par with those assassins, but in combat he seems bulky. Even more than Batman (for him that was a style of a heavy-hitter). Geralt can't close in on distant enemy, get stuck in trees (again)... Not like you can't get used to that, though.
In the end it's not a bad game. It lost its intimacy, replaced it with open world, turned to be a bit lighter in general, but still a game worth of spending quite a few hours on it.
[Update after playing a bit more]
I know I said the game was lacking in terms of storytelling. I still think it does lack some in emotions and performance part and those witcher contracts and quests linked to some of the undiscovered locations are below the average in quality, but there are quite a few good stories among the secondary quests. And the main quests is not half bad either. And the general amount of content... Well, prices went up considerably in Russia, but this one would be worth it even without the discount I had on pre-order.
