After 150+ hours, and multiple restarts (kept experiment with different classes), I finally finished this. Overall I really enjoyed it. This was despite the fact that two of the strongest points in the game, the main story, and the companions & their side quests, were not as good as the first game. The main story is really short, and should have been fleshed out more. There is no real villain to defeat, instead, in the end you end up making some significant changes to how the world of Eora will function, and it should have been expanded more to give it more weight. As it is it felt rushed, like you were just along for the ride, especially the final area. Also, you will be interacting with the Gods of Eora face to face quite often, and it cheapens their quality/mystique quite a bit. Finally, the companions didn't do much for me. Eder is pretty good, and Serafin is really good, but the others I didn't care for, for various reasons. Also the companion side quests were kinda short, and rather uninteresting.
What I really enjoyed was the exploring the islands and their dungeons, interacting with the four main factions, the side quests, and the small details they put into the game (like sloshing through swamps, the shanties, the way Xoti's lantern cast party shadows around as moved, the background NPC's chattering away, etc). The dungeons seemed much smaller compared to the first, but also more detailed and interesting.
The combat was super easy (after about level 10-12 I felt like I was on autopilot), but they are working on fixing that. Not sure how I liked the way spells and weapons skills were implemented compared to the first, but I did like combat skill tree, and the character skills (stealth, diplomacy, etc) all came into play during conversations, and scripted encounters on the islands.
I would probably wait until they finish balancing the combat, and cleaning up some bugs before getting it, and maybe the first dlc, but if you were a fan of the 1st, I would recommend deadfire.