If you're using steam, you can play the game through library-sharing while the friend you're borrowing from is playing, just by opening up the Larian Launcher in the steam folder. You just need to not have Steam opened. You can play multiplayer using a direct connection in the meantime, including with the friend whose copy of the game you are perusing, but you won't get achievements.
The game is okay. I got through the tutorial level and slew both the boss I was supposed to run away from and the thing that was keeping it preoccupied, and ever since then I have been searching for The Plot, but have only been able to find a bunch of things trying to murder me and failing at the job. So, you know, they nailed that part of baldur's gate. Not a fan of fifth edition Dungeons & Dungeons, but so far this is the only game I can think of that'll let me play as a half-darkelf follower of eilistraee. It's come up in conversation two or three times, but two of those times it was a "no I'll pray to my deity instead" conversation option when confronted with somebody mourning over their recently-murdered friend. Kind of dick-writing? The druids being fervently against allowing me anywhere near their inner circle is spot-on, though.
Oh right, spoilers: there are druids and murders. And tieflings!
I'm not playing as The Dark Urge because I like tieflings. Tieflings have been promoted from XP fodder to "only murder if absolutely necessary." Goblins, dark elves, psychic kalamari-men, dragonriders, and pretty much everything else that isn't a common animal or a comrade is being eaten for XP, and probably being cheesed with Sneak Attack spam. I have lost count of how many fights I've cheesed with my rogue spamming sneak attack, but the most recent one kind of aggro'd almost an entire goblin village's population and they quickly found a way up the walls to start shooting back.
Karlach the Barbarian is probably my favorite companion, but Wyll is a close second, and Gale is just so charming. Wyll and Karlach have my second-favorite way to cheese fights: shoving people, and knockback lasers. There are so many fights that look like they're just built around fun environmental hazards, and you get to knock people into cliffs.
So yeah, so far my only regrets are not making a flat-chested lizard girl w/ peen instead, and putting more hours of my life into a Dungeons & Dreadmoar video game than I'm spending with my other half. Maaaaaaybe the 120 gig install too? My V-nand can handle it, but I'd rather have that space for other stuff and I don't wanna go buy more SSDs.
