I am among those who found Gothic 3 to be a very enjoyable game from day one. Sure it had flaws, many flaws even, but beneath the flaws was a very good game, with a lot of ambition. I'll normally take a flawed diamond over a polished turd.
Some of the things which bothered many people wasn't all that bad for me. For one thing, I did not experience all that many bugs. The one major technical problem of the game was performance, but I got used to that after a while. Another thing which didn't bother me, was the "stun-lock problem". There is a reason people in real life mainly hunt with ranged weapons, and have done so throughout history. Entering close-range combat with a wild animal may not be the best approach. One of the nice things about the real Gothic games (I don't consider Arcania a real Gothic game), is that you can encounter problems, but you may overcome them by adapting your strategy. My solution to the stun-lock thing was to hunt with a bow, which I think works well from a role-playing perspective too. Still, I can understand that some people found it to be a bit out of proportion, and annoying, but I don't think it was that big a deal.
The things which bothered me most about Gothic 3 was the storytelling and poor AI. The AI was far too easy to exploit when you were up against it, and far to stupid when you needed it by your side (ref. all those quests where you had to export the world's most useless hunter from one location to another).
On the plus side, the game world in Gothic 3 is truly great: beautiful, interesting and rewarding to explore, full of content. The game mechanics are also pretty good, with rewarding character development, good archery and magic, and decent close-range combat.
So, based on the demo of Arcania, I think Gothic 3 was a lot better and vastly more interesting from day one. That's according to my taste, of course.
Kay
