I do wonder if I have the time for Two Worlds or not. Every review I read about the game have just rambled about Oblivion which is information completely useless to me. IGN's review seems to be the most honest: "This game is glitchy and unpolished, and these quirks will prevent it from duplicating the real key to Oblivion's success: mainstream appeal." and "There are people out there – especially the hardcore computer-RPG nuts that have been rocking Elder Scrolls since Arena – who are going to love it." but I would have enjoyed a review written by someone who appreciate roleplaying games and Oblivion do not qualify as a roleplaying game in my book. I want to know things like... Are the quests linear or do they allow me to make personal choices? How free is the world to roam in? How robust is the character/skill system and what kind of RPG'ish minigames are there (I heard something about a decent alchemy system).
I absolutely love the game... it's much, much better than Gothic 3... closer to what G3 should have been. I'm even enjoying it more than oblivion...
Just like in G1 and G2 you can use the environment to your advantage... for example... if a bandit is giving you a hard time, and there's a pack of wolves nearby... just have the bandit chase you until you get to the wolves... if you do it just right the pack will attack the bandit... causing him to have to fight for his life. I never saw this happen once in G3... in fact it was like all of nature was out to get me. In G3 if I had any humanoid attacking me, and there were wild animals near as well... everything would attack me as if they all worked for the same big team. There were times that I had rhinos, wolves, and orcs all attacking me at the same time... it was goofy.
Two Worlds is getting a bum rap... mostly because of the poor xbox implementation... everyone has different tastes... but for me, this is a great game. I'll be sad when it's over.
To answer your questions -
* quests are mostly not linear (except for the main quest)... you have several choices on how to complete (or not complete) each quest... you can even just say scr3w it and kill anyone you want. And there are TONS of interesting quests.
* You can roam the world freely at all times. But forget the scaling of the big O. If you choose to go to a place that is obviously beyond your skills... YOU WILL GET KILLED.
* I love the character/skill system. Not all of the skills are completely useful and I think a couple are still broken... but overall you can craft the type of character you want... with most of the active skills being really cool to use.
* Alchemy is good, though I don't use it much. Even though it makes absolutely no "realistic" sense... the ability to take like items (weapons, armor) and combine them to make more powerful items is extremely cool. And there are so many different types of armor and weapons that it's amazing. And each piece of armor is part of a set... so it can be fun to try to get just the set of armor you're looking for.
I love it... and I can't see why any CRPG lover wouldn't...