Hated it at first: slow, awkward, basic construction-kit graphics... But kept reading about how great it was so gave it another chance, slogged through the prologue, then to the end of slightly better act 1, then act 2 was better still. By act 3 I was locked into a game of multi-dimensional-chess with a master game designer. These dimensions being combat, management of equipment & consumables, character-build, alignment, party management, kingdom management and most importantly: timing.
Its possible to let the sequence of events get away from you and destroy your kingdom, ending the game... complete & utter failure. Its still a mostly linear story but it can let you gradually fail, and try to recover from it. Not knowing where the threshold of failure lies adds a great deal of tension & urgency to the game, which many players don't enjoy, but I find to be a great mechanic that makes sense and adds temporal optimization to its many layers of strategy.
By the late game there's a real sense of accomplishment as your character evolves into a force of nature, you develop history with your party who change over time, your kingdom expands and develops, you stay on-top of the many desperate challenges from parties who all have a valid reason to end you.
The story is essentially one of redemption & emancipation, rather than the tiresome kill-the-monsters you usually get with similar games, but it also depends on your decisions. The story can also make the player doubt or regret specific decisions, or even their entire course of action.
Alignment in this game was mostly consistent, despite the system being inherently ambiguous. Alignment is also dependent on dialogue not actions; you can loot graves & corpses, steal anything you can get your hands on, kill passive animals, and still remain 'lawful-good'. This is a weakness in the game design that can hurt roleplay, but otherwise has little effect.
The lore of the world is well developed and interesting, especially the plethora of cults, rich history and the 1st world & its inhabitants. There isn't much exposition of the lore and 'offscreen' entities, so it mostly remains mysterious & novel to new players.
Acting by companions and NPCs range from outstanding to annoying, more towards the latter, but they all have very distinct personalities, motivations and inhibitions. Their stories and development are also distinct and well scripted, with one or two exceptions.
Main story isn't particularly well-told, which is a limitation of isometric games, but there were a few moments that stay with you long after playing. One thing that's lacking here, which exists in the source material and Wrath, is the ability to go way off the deep-end into WTF territory when pursuing a particular course of action, for example: in Wrath taking an interest in swarms can eventually lead to you becoming one and consuming everyone... that game lets you go-there which is great. Not-so with Kingmaker.
Difficulty is tough, like constant struggle throughout the game, very difficult to pull ahead of your opponents. Never managed to solo the game. Playing as a caster is especially punishing given the need to rest after fights, which can put you behind schedule. There's also a massive difficulty spike towards the end which can prematurely end the game for some builds. Challenges can have multiple workarounds however, with some being quite clever or humorous.
Game ran OK in Linux (thanks to GoG), but was pretty slow & janky compared to other titles with more demanding content.
