I played Witcher 1 all the way. I stopped midway in chapter 1 of Witcher 2. In both games, I hated the lack of character development in terms of skills and builds. You have your 5 signs (skills) throughout the entire game. The only other options to improve your character is through passive boosts. You can only play Geralt. Basically, everyone is playing the same build. I also disliked the combat heavily but that aspect is personal preference.
I think the main appeal to the Witcher series is the storytelling and the non-black/white decisions as opposed to other RPGs such Bioware games. The graphics in Witcher 2 is quite amazing as well. Witcher 3 improves on this by being open-world and introducing the hunting/tracking feature on large monsters. When you combine open-world, good storytelling, and fun things to do on the side, that makes a good game to western gamers. Also, as Geralt, you get to **** girls and they're not censored so that's got all the lonely male gamers attention.
I couldn't get into Witcher 2 due to lack of options for character development and it's combat so I doubt I'll be playing Witcher 3 because it's going to be the same. Call me old school but I like non-action combat with not so much open-world. However, I can see why people like the Witcher series a lot. I prefer Dragon Age myself though.
