This will be a rant, I'll try to TLDR it and give some generalizations first. I will 100% miss things but I will include what sticks out the most to me this second.

OVERALL: 9/10, well worth $60 even if you don't like HP, just as a fantasy open-world RPG. I have enjoyed every one of the 20, then 30, now 40 hours spent in this game and I mainly went side-questing and exploring instead of story.

As an aside I play on "Hard" difficulty and am on my first run as a Slytherin.

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CATEGORIES: Steam Deck experience, PC Experience (combat, bugs, visuals, favorites, complaints)
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Steam Deck Experience: Probably about 5 of my hours so far, controls were very easy to adapt to from PC, ran extremely smoothly and had no Deck-specific complaints. Especially with this being a single player non-internet game I can easily imagine this being my go-to Steam Deck game.

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PC Experience:
Combat: Very early in the tutorial you are shown how to fight, block, and do basic attacks. Easy to learn, and a nice introduction. As you progress and learn more spells, blue bar special moves (not specified for spoiler reasons), shielding/cursing, and environment interactions, combat goes from "spam my favorite chain" to "pay attention, play to your strengths, and exploit weaknesses". Personally, I struggled against specific bosses and Battle Arenas which only increased my enjoyment compared to the small encounters I quickly overcame. Fights that took me two or three tries, pouring out my inventory to turn the tide had me ecstatic to earn a victory.
I am also usually extremely bad at stealth options in games but this works exceptionally well. I can clear entire camps without being detected or at least make a hard fight more in my favor by taking some out beforehand. Even "Infamous Foes" could go down with no effort with a well-executed assassination.

Pros:
- Easy to learn, hard to master. Play "Story" difficulty if you really don't like it, I love it.
- You fight how you want. I intended on not using Plants or Potions but then discovered how useful they are. How your spells interact are up to your casting order.
- Dark Arts are completely your choice, and while they are exceptionally powerful the recharge time makes up for it.
- Enemies scale. I massively over leveled doing side quests where at Level 30 (out of 40) I was doing Level 12 Main Quests. Enemies were still either 20ish for easy or 34ish for more difficult encounters. Amazing.

Cons:
- Ran into some issues with Advanced Dodge Roll when bosses would attack where I would get hit anyway. Annoying but a learning moment.
- Hard is hard. Less reaction time, more aggressive spells, hits hurt more. I'm often chugging Health Potions since most hits take >2/3 of your HP. Again, other difficulties are available.

[Again, this is all I can think of at the moment. Play for yourself]
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Bugs: Pros:
- Personally experienced 0 crashes, and all bugs have been visual
- Places I think I've been softlocked the game teleports you to last safe ground so no reload or reset required

Cons:
- You'd have to visit others reviews, personally no issues.

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Visuals:
I did upgrade my PC purely to place this game, but wow are the visuals worth it. I was so happy Graphics defaulted to Ultra. The lighting is fabulous, moving inside-outside or vice versa transitions very smoothly.

Pros:
- Spell effects, character details, environment effects, everything is gorgeous
- Smooth transitions
- Seasonal changes are especially beautiful (snow, autumnal colors, etc)

Cons:
- Hardware intensive
- Seriously don't blow up your PC

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Favorites: I mentioned I spent most of my time side-questing. That means I was so content just exploring, flying around, gathering materials, doing puzzles, etc etc I didn't mind not doing the main plot. One of my favorite parts was when I fought a bandit camp higher level than what I should've been near and was able to beat it with some careful planning and executions.

The "base of operations" in this game is exceptionally well done in my opinion. The resources are easy to gather for the ones in the world, and while initially expensive to make local harvesters the rewards easily pay it off in the future. "Rescuing", taming, and farming beasts is also exceptionally rewarding.

Enemy Encyclopedia is especially helpful detailing often uncommon ways to beat enemies, or how to weaken them for more damage.

Open Exploration, the world is very large and fast travel is easy. Broom flight is fairly early on and the other mounts later but they all have their perks. Also there's so many different brooms to choose from.

Character Customization / Equipment: There are SO MANY options to discover for outfit parts, and the "equip for stats, vanity for looks" method is perfect. If we just go off equipment, my character looks absolutely goofy all the time, but instead I was a full-plate Knight in a green Snake scarf running around fighting bad guys. Equip for stats, pick your vanity, sell the rest, rinse and repeat.

"Morality": Obviously outside of Dark Arts or Not usage, most of the time on Quest turn-in there are 3 options:
1. "I did X thing, have a nice day" (Positive)
2. "X was really tough, can I get a reward?" (Positive still, but more money)
3. "X is mine now." (Negative, STILL GET NORMAL REWARD)
It was very entertaining the first time I refused to tell someone how to solve something they found and told me about, then later heard them complain I was insufferable. Great NPC interaction with no real consequence.
Or choosing NOT to learn the Unforgiveables really has no downside outside of your preference.

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Complaints: Again, specific things I can think of right now.
- Gear slots are so small, even with expansion over time it is a little annoying to be mid-quest and see "gear slots are full"
- Common repeating voice lines. "Seems like every road leads to Hogsmeade" "You cannot IMAGINE how inconvenient travel was before I invented Floo Powder!"
- You have to minigame pick every lock even as you upgrade the skill for higher ones. Just let me auto-unlock the lesser ones if I'm at a high level already.

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So yeah that is my review currently. Thanks for reading, I tried to organize it. This is definitely my longest review ever but with how long people hoped this game was good and how excited I am to play it, it is well deserved.

Make your own opinions and drink water :)