G2 +NOTR rocks, G2 without NOTR is freaking awesome!.
yeah it's hard but that's another thing I like about it, tried of the games where it's so easy to kill everyone and everything fits to your level, let me walk into a cave and disturb a couple of shadowbeast which instantly turn me to dinner , any day of the week. that's true freedom, the freedom of being stupid and getting killed every time you're not on your guard.
I like this approach much better than for instance fallout 3 where you can kill anything at level 1 if you are cunning and by level 5 the game just gets boring.

man watch out for snappers they will follow you for miles