I hated the skills system in the first game, and the fighting was tedious with all the stances and whatnot. I never did like the lack of good items, where the skill did all the damage and the weapons was secondary. They've changed that and now it's a good ol' RPG when it comes to leveling and items. The characters and dialogues are great, at par with DA, IMO.
I fully recommend it if you like RPG's. It's said to be rather short, but doing all the side quest and some item hunting, but I spent ~twenty hours for the prolugue and chapter 1 (there are three chapters, and I think, an epilogue but dunno if it's playable).
THe only downside is the difficulty of understanding the world and al when you have never read/played Witcher before. I had to google the world map just to get one in english so I knew where the hell I was, heh...
(The in-game world map has some weird language, prolly familiar to those who've read the books).EDIT: Just beat the game. You had to make alot of decisions along the way which affected the story and the outcome. It was great and I can really recommend a playthrough!
An enhanced edition though may just make me reboot the game.. if ever I find the time!