The Witcher [Enhanced Edition]
This open-world role-playing game is grand and immersive, with a rich and deep background story, dozens of memorable characters, and many diverse "quests" to complete. However, to reap its many rewards and partake of its many delights one needs quite a bit of patience. Even if you avoid the many side-quests (don't!), the game will still demand lots and lots of back-tracking, and on the normal difficulty level combat can get repetitive and grindy. Still, there's so much great content in between that I felt my 50-hour completion time fly by.
In other words, The Witcher is a wonderfully satisfying game, but for a specific kind of gamer.
This is also a "choices matter" game. The world is morally murky, gritty and dark, and you're often forced to choose whose side you're on. Sometimes (but not always) your decision will affect events later in the game. There's no "right" choice and all paths will lead to the end. This choice system ends up being just another way for the world to respond to you and make you feel part of it. It's done well, integrated with the overarching story as well as with smaller events and relationships.
The game's many systems—skills, magic, alchemy, loot, drinking, meditation, brawling, and even poker—are intricate but can be understood by playing through the story and trying things out. If you're really confused, there are great online guides. In the default difficulty level it's not too hard, so even if you don't quite master all the details of collecting herbs and mixing potions you will be just fine. Just hit things with your swords and put all your talent points in fighting. That extra depth is there for those who enjoy tinkering and the challenge.
The user interface is also not too bad. It's a mouse-and-keyboard game, so you should take some time to learn the keyboard shortcuts and explore the various camera modes. It's all a bit clunky, but soon enough it will feel natural.
There are some other problems with the game (in addition to the annoying amount of back-tracking). Despite the good basic story, dialog writing and voice acting are sometimes quite mediocre. There are also too many "filler" side-quests that require you to kill monsters for money. It fits with the story's conceit, but it's not top-notch content. Likewise, there are several "crypts" (dungeons) that all look exactly the same. Filler.
Another problem is how sex is handled. Famously, the game has quite a bit of sex and also some nudity (in addition to the usual copious amount of violence). Is the sex gratuitous? Well, it does fit in the context of the world, its society, and the characters. But it's awkward as a game system. First, in that you collect trophies for every woman you bed, which feels unnecessarily game-y and even predatory. Second, in that there's no "open-world" or "role-playing" in the sex system. You can only play as a straight man and can only bed a specific set of super-model types. This kind of restriction feels artificial and prudish, especially since you get much more freedom to decide who you kill.
How does it hold in 2019? I've played it for the first time 12 years after its release, without having ever played the later games in the series. It holds fairly well. The graphics, maybe, not so much: the original textures are blurry and animations clunky. I recommend at least installing a texture mod, such as "The Witcher Overhaul Project", which does not alter the original art direction too much. Also, though the game does support 4K, the text will be far too small. I think 1440p is the highest you should go, and even then it might be a good idea to install the "Bigger Fonts for High Resolution Gaming" mod.
Finally, some technical support! If you get frequent crashes in Windows 10, set the witcher.exe file's compatibility mode to Windows XP. And if the mouse is too sensitive, well, tough luck: the game won't let you change that, so you'll have to change it in your operating system's settings.