I absolutely hated The Witcher 3.
TW1 I found very good, but a slog at times (that damn swamp), TW2 is prob my fave game of all time and I was stunned at how replayable it was.
But TW3? To make sure that I wasn't missing something I forced my way through it twice, as so many had raved about it. My conclusion? Too many casuals who think it's a decent RPG. I mean, where to start.
Loot - Already mentioned above. Awful, disposable, worthless loot littering the world, with only Witcher Gear even being worth a look in.
Main Story - Dull. Flat out boring person-fetch quests which, apart from the Bloody Baron quest, rarely contain anything epic or exciting.
Pointless Open World - Seriously, what is there to find of worth or note? Every quest is given via a noticeboard, character or marker. It was like someone too The Witcher 2 and litterally just decided to add 2-5min worth of boring walking/enemies between each part of the quest.
The Wild Hunt Contradiction - I mean, WTF? The previous 2 games build up TWH as something which is very connected to Geralt, yet there's no real connection explored in this game. But worse than that is the fact that the whole game says from the outset "Shit! TWH are after Ciri! Quick, rush to help her as quick as you can!" and then the actual game encourages you to plod along at your leisure, collecting paint for trolls and doing your day job. It's a jarringly bad example of setup & excecution, like your missus dressing up in kinky leather and then falling asleep for half hour.
Dialogue "options" - So 90% of the dialogie options are essentially "see another cutscene with some more info". There was very rarely choice & concequence, and each extra option would just give me more info, not engage me to influence anything.
Combat - For what it's worth, I actually thought it was OK, BUT on Death March I did play later fights litterally with my eyes shut, as the didge-attack rhythm became predictable very soon.
Quest Structure - *Talk-travel to place-hold witcher senses button down-fight-return to quest giver* I soon switched off at the quests themselves, as most followe this very predictable & boring pattern.
It's a spectators game, and for people who want to watch a game do the work. It's not for those who want to feel a connection or interactive with their games.
I'd say around 30% of it was good, and I could have lived with around another 10-15% filler on top of that. But just so much of it was bloated, repetitive, dull & unessessary. Out of all the quests I did I reckon around 5 had me buzzing, which for me is what most quests should do.
Have passed this opinion many times on many forums & sites, usually to be slated, but I still say it's largely the truth.