I bought Avowed at full price, for feks sake

And the real shocker is, no regrets so far.  In terms of action combat
in a single player fantasy setting like this (which isn't really my
genre), I really haven't seen something like this in quite a while.

First I want to say I had no intention of paying full price for this
game, I can wait forever for single player games since
matchmaking/lobby filling is not even a consideration.

I bought it mostly because [1] I found out someone I knew reasonably
well wrote the entire soundtrack for it, and [2] it looked kind of fun
and combat-mechanics focused which will draw me in much faster than a
game where a few tens of millions of dollars have been spent on
"story" that's been out-woked to Sweet Baby Inc or whaever.

About [1] I've never met him in person, he's quite a bit
younger/greener/less experienced than me in all aspects of life, but I
have had enough conversations with him to know that I've had
substantial influence on the choices made in his music career
(especially regarding gear purchases which I know he struggles with
financially).. , and I've learned a great deal from him (as I always
do from music buddies), so there was absolutely no way I was not
supporting him by purchasing the game whether I liked playing it or
not.  He does tend to be a bit of the type to talk because he loves to
hear his own voice, and there is a YT video out there where he is kind
of giving himself attaboys...  but in terms of the soundtrack itself,
the appropriateness for the game (and what I always look for, the
production value), I think he recognized the value of the opportunity
early on and stepped up to the plate appropriately, so kudos to him on
a job well done!

About [2]... I guess going into things with the expectations of the
kind of changes we've seen over the last few years sets us up for
going "wow" when we see something better than the usual crap?  I
definitely got a nice surprise here.. where I really feel the
difference is simply combat that's actually fun.  I'm not going to
tell you it's necessarily as fun or impactful as Dark Messiah of Might
and Magic back in the day, but it reminds me of that in the sense of
the overall immersiveness of the combat itself.

It's not a perfect game by any means.  It comes in woke very quickly
with the character creation thing (He/She/They pronouns), and very
early in the game makes sure that every female or female-like being
you might encounter is so far from sexy or fuckable, that it seems
like an intentional-yet-subliminal libido passiviation mechanism,
designed to be sure you never get distracted from anything but the
game.  Did they hire Kim Belair to design the female characters?
Rodney Dangerfield used to joke that if you want to look fit, make
sure all the friends you hang around are only fat people.  I think
this is Kim's strategy to game design -- to downplay her own
unattractiveness by making sure everything else has trouble meeting a
lower standard.

It also has bugs..  pretty severe if you go wandering about the map,
climbing rocks and such.  You get into bad terrain clipping shit that
quickly lets you know the game patches aren't ready for that.

Mack from WorthABuy is correct that the world feels "too clean" and
(my description not his) too Avatar-Movie-Like.  But I got used to
this much faster than I thought I would... and I remembered from the
Zelda games on Switch, not everything needs to look realistic to be
fun.  The art in this game is fun, you just have to be willing to let
your eyes adapt to it.

So there ya go.  I'm now a chump who has spent full price for a game,
with absolutely no chance of refunding it. :)  Most of you should
probably buy this game too, if your machine can see it in all its
glory and at a nice framerate.