Icewind Dale

Hooked by the plot and the mechanics. Played it many times through, my fav D&D rules game by far.

The prose is flowery but not particularly engaging. The aesthetic and world is pretty damn cool, but it's attached to a mundane plot that meanders for hours. The dungeons are pretty generic and uninteresting, with most enemies easily cheesed by luring them into a narrow corridor. On the one hand I think customizing your full party is neat and creates a lot of cool rp potential, but frankly, learning hundreds of spells that aren't horribly interesting doesn't enthuse me towards this structure.

It had a nice look to it, and some refinements to the engine (as you'd hope, since it's all combat all the time). All-in-all, not a bad way to keep fans of Infinity Engine dungeon crawling busy at the time, but the strict linearity and combat focus may disappoint those drawn in by other aspects of these games.

Has a fantastic atmosphere and great art direction, but I don't think a combat focused, highly linear IE game was really such a great idea. I was pretty damn bored by it.