As other folk said, definitely do get the DLCs. There’s a whole other game in there.

It’s been a while since I last played, and this game IS a masterpiece, no doubt about that, but the one of the first sections can be rough. Iirc it’s gloomy af, there’s some hard monsters in some quests that can be demotivating and the combat/mechanics takes some getting used to which makes the previous point worse. Just know that the game opens up and there’s a whole world out there.

There are tons of side quests which are great, so you should do those but also don’t feel like you need to do all of them. It can be easy to get side tracked and then lose steam and quit on the main story.

Especially because like I said the DLCs are amazing. They are also quite self contained so it’s like a breath of fresh air

Enjoy this amazing game. I’m jealous of you