Yes. All romance is highly optional. You have to chase it if you want it, with the exception of 1 scene where you can still stopbefore it starts.
As for what to do with it: This is for PC. If you've only got a console don't bother opening it.
Well, Witcher 3 was buggy at the beginning too, do I can see them fixing the bugs. But there are massive gaps in the city, content that's obviously missing. IMO it's worth playing but not worth paying for until they release a free DLC that fills in the gaps. Some of my other gripes about it can be found in my post history. Good things: The save system is awesome: It's intuitive and really easy to go back to any time in the story and saves/autosaves are fast enough to not get in the way. And still it doesn't take too much space. The combat AI is great. They avoided a LOT of mistakes like having enemies forget you or not going to look for you in obvious spots. Stealth is fun and both melee and distance combat is realistic, with well designed locations. IMO the hacking minigame is too easy, but if you don't like that sort of minigame that's a good thing. They have a lot of music and it's well mixed. It adds to the excitement without being obtrusive most of the time. The way it works with Windows is excellent. Alt tab is instant and bug free. So is alt f4. They clearly put a lot of time into the underpinnings.
A lot of people complain about the driving, but on PC I haven't had any trouble with it, with the exception of one mission where you have to drive a truck that drives like it has greased bald tires. In fact on PC the traction is a little too good to be realistic.
Here on Poal people are calling it pozzed just because of the availability of a variety of body types and the existence of trannies. IMO that's not pozzed. But the sheer number of side shave hair cuts and trannies is.
There are other posts on here comparing it to GTA IV and they're valid as far as it goes, but you could respond with: Okay and how are GTA's body upgrade system and stealth hacking? Furthermore GTA is building on a long-established universe with a lot of bugs ironed out over the decades. It's not really a fair comparison
On a personal note I wish it had more pretty female NPCs and more ways to see their bodies. I'm aware this is in strong conflict with the Poal zeitgeist.
One more thing: they made it very moddable and IMO the modding community will, in time, fix their mistakes and fill in the gaps. Not saying they should have to but I think they will. Being mod friendly is enormously important for a game like this.
So play or keep? I say play. Not because it's a rocking good game now but because it's going to get better with time and there are probably 20,000 other people who had the idea to keep a collector's edition to sell later.
If you do play, I strongly recommend the green haze fix and nexus declutter
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