I've been playing it for about a week now, don't seem to be anywhere near the half way point yet either. I'm loving it, the NPC interaction is my favorite so far. You'll be travelling from place to place and you'll hear the NPC's bantering with each other, without pausing the game and putting up a dialogue screen, (too bad so sad, you don't get to pitch in sometimes :-P).

I also like the gift idea for the NPC's and the story/battles give it that extra epic feeling that really makes me love this game. The only thing I wish was different is that I could have a further over the shoulder perspective, or even top down, it's too constricted for me, (tight spaces baaaaad).

The start was slow like stitches said, but I focused more on the development of the story since 50% of the first 2 hours was actually cutscenes, (not in a bad way), helped move the story along and introduce the principle characters. For replay value, esc skips dialogue/actions in cutscenes.

This brings me to my last point.... they programmed the NPC's to... ACT. Yes, the NPC's have facial expressions, move around, swing their arms at you and what not, they don't just stand there with expressionless faces and lips moving when they talk. It's pretty awesome.