It's good! It feels like how I remember Oblivion feeling, which is a huge compliment. I have been looking for a game that scratches that itch for a while, and even Skyrim didn't quite do it for me. The first Dragon's Dogma didn't hit for me either. This one does.
The pawns are interesting. I never really engaged with that system in DD1, but here it's a neat way of connecting with other players. I like it a lot. Getting a pawn that says "Hey, I remember there's a treasure chest over there, want me to take you to it?" is super neat.
I really like the degree to which you can customize your character. I made one that looks like me, which is to say: overweight. This is not something you can do in a lot of games, but in this one you can!
I know there is Discourse about the microtransactions. Having played it: I didn't even notice they are in the game. You're never prompted with "did you know you can buy Portcrystals for real money?" Or the mobile game thing of having a separate currency system. If you just don't open the store menu on the title screen, it may as well not be there. It really feels like the developers were told by corporate that they had to include some kind of microtransactions and the developers threw something together last minute.
And the things I see in the store are things the game already gives you in regular play. I wouldn't actually want any of these because it would make the game too easy. The only exception is a book that lets you recustomize your character mid-game, and I think there's shops in game that let you do that too--I know there's a barber for changing hair styles at least.
All of which is to say: don't let that keep you from a really fun experience.
