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So I just read this book on history of games called "Blood, Sweat and Pixels" and was fascinated by the chapter on The Witcher 3 and mostly how the team put in so much thought and care in every single side quest. And seems that there are a lot of moral decision to be made on each adventure. So I finally decided to give it a try. Got any advice for me?
If you have the patience for it, try playing on a much harder difficulty. The medium and low difficulty levels don't provide the same weight. Many systems in the game are unnecessary at lower difficulty levels but higher difficulty forces you to engage in them to get the extra edge over certain encounters.
Higher difficulties force you to engage in potion brewing, reading up on enemies, and making genuinely tough choices morally in order to keep Geralt alive. Lower difficulties remove all the tension from these systems.
Also as another user mentioned, don't skip any dialogue and engage in the side quests/contracts as they give a lot of unique flavor and nuance to the world and story.
I've done two full playthroughs of the game (plus dlc), one on the standard difficulty and one on hard. I can confirm that many of the game's systems are rendered unnecessary by the easier difficulty. I really enjoyed my second playthrough and would definitely recommend.
However, if you don't think you'll enjoy that (having to plan and work for every advantage to be able to succeed) I would wholeheartedly endorse the easier levels. The story and quest design alone are worth the price of admission! Side quests in this game make many other games main story pale in comparison.