I did not read the books or play the games before watching it, although I watched my GF play it a bit (she read the books too) and she was going on and on about the epic story, Geralt, other major characters and such. So naturally we both wanted to watch it when it came out, which we did. She was immensely disappointed about the show because it changed too much for the worse, and gave too little depth. For me the show was just mediocre and I was not bothered too much by it.

I just recently got some time off work and decided to play Witcher 3, which is easily in my top 3 games of all time now. The biggest butcher around is not Gerat, the butcher of Blaviken, but the show runners. They shattered the story into bits and pieces and molded it back into something that is pure sh. I honestly hope that season 2 will be the final one for the sake of us viewers and the story authenticity.

By the way, Witcher 3 has 13 hours of cutscenes that are immeasurably better than anything you might see here. I strongly recommend you to ignore the show, the sooner it is done the better.

All in all bad storywriting. The fact that people who played the game/read the books dont like the show but think "maybe it is for a general audience and I should not look into the inconsistencies" and that people who never played or read Witcher think "maybe it is for avid fans since I dont understand ehat the hell is going on" should show us that it does not suit anybody.