Ars technica review is just a lame attempt to be controversial and do the buzz. The game is glorious, absolutely fantastic even in its early access stage. It reeks of high budget for sure, the visuals are incredible, highly atmospheric, story is great hardly anything negative to say except a few bugs and UI glitches.
Does it relate to bg2 ? so far not really , but its a real D&D game in the forgotten realms faithfull to the lore and reasonably faithfull to the rules .
The character visuals are great, the mechanism not so much as its missing half the classes and so far no feats to pick. You dont even have vriant human as race pick.Missing also cunning action disengage for rogue.
As for the divinity games there's some attention to details, a real pro job. As i said before larian is the new blizzard.
Could end up being the best rpg i ever played no less,i dare to say it , and i am gaming since the 80's.