Its VERY dense. Both in terms of things to do and things to think about when building your character.
To be fair, I have very little dnd experience. Dnd vets probably have an easier time building their character/party.
The maps are huge and they do a fantastic job of turning, seemingly small tasks into lavish questlines.
I constantly find myself being like, "Ill just check out this little room in the back" Which turns into a 5 hour quest cause I discovered some button that opened a secret doorway behind a bookcase and took me to some whole new shit.
Can't go wrong with a Wizard, a cleric, and a monk. Preferably a psionic monk. Once the wizard is level 5 anyway you will have no DPS issues, the monk can tank like a pro, and does a lot of DPS at lower levels. Cleric can be built to tank like a pro, and throw healing like mad.
Well first you need to pick a race, and build your character 7 times. Then you need to pick a class which leads to rebuilding your character more times. Of course then you realize that your main character stats and background would really be better a different way with a different class, which means you need to readjust your look.
The first area is really big. I think I'm about to move on to the next area after 40 hours or so but I also thought that 6 hours ago but keep stumbling into new areas.
It doesn't have to take that long by any means, but there's a lot to do, plus secrets all over the place. Some take a sharp eye; others you need to get a passive dice roll (affected by whatever skill) for your character to discover exists.