EDIT: Sorry for the wall of text.
Like with many other games, BG needs to be put into an historical perspective if you want to enjoy it. Building too much expectations may not do you good.
I'm uncertain how the enhanced edition will play out for those who haven't played it before, while I'm sure how it will for those who have
Back in the late 90s, RPGs were pretty much a dying genre. The old model had been exhausted and whatever game was launched pretty much insisted on first-person party perspective or single hero isometric view. We were generally unaware at the time (until Baldur's Gate happened that is) that SSI's Gold Box fully controllable party could have evolved the genre into a more engaging experience. Also, we were to a large extent unaware that the the party player characters themselves could be an integral party of the story and its narrative, not just agents of the player in the game world.
Ultimately this was leading to a certain disinterest on the genre. Different graphics here, different stories there, but games were at their core carbon copies of each other. Not just that, but the actual core premises of these games were becoming too simplistic and couldn't match the depth of the late 90s titles in other genres.
So, first thing that made Baldur's Gate a classic and respected title to this date is exactly how it broke with the mold and presented us something new and evolved. BG is still today a ruler by which we measure the quality of an RPG. Most important it influenced to this day the need to present players with rich storytelling. It's in fact by no mere chance that the most respect storyteller of all (Planescape: Torment) emerged from BGs team one year later.
Another aspect to BG that helped cement its position was the epic dimension of the two games. Never before something like this had been seen. The original and its sequel are huge and the single expansion pack for each of them adds a whole lot more. Finally we were able to play an RPG that didn't feel like a waste of time.
BG was something entirely new that took the RPG genre by storm and helped redefine it. It's actually curious that this is the one computer game genre that evolved through the largest number of seminal games. And it is still today in need of being redefined. Skyrim, The Witcher, etc are taking us back again to single player characters and first-person perspective, or player characters not a part of the world they live in, but mere agents of gameplay narrative. This doesn't make them inferior games by no means. But helps explain why the RPG genre is so rich in gameplay possibilities and why it has been through so many transformations; RPGs are about telling stories more than anything else, and there's many ways to tell a story.
Meanwhile, the playing party of heroes can still be seen in titles like Dragon Age (my favorite RPG to date, after BG). Few are doing it, once again. And once again we are exhausting the genre because games like Skyrim or The Witcher don't happen often and this gameplay model isn't alone capable of carrying the genre forward for 10 more years. Although, I must say sandboxing helped tremendously the genre. That's another great step forward that one day will in fact be recognized as one of the most important contributions to RPG. This, I suspect, will happen when we gather the technology to develop true interactive and living narratives.
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But BG was a game made in 1998 and this is an important thing to keep in mind. Because it was announced no changes will be made to the game, it needs to be said here an now what you can expect from it that isn't in line with modern gaming:
-- Lots and lots of text to read.
-- 2D isometric view.
-- Branched, but still linear game progression
-- 2nd Edition AD&D ruleset (although frankly to me we should have never played 3rd edition)
-- Simplistic combat system (or simplistic by modern standards)
If one can look at the game objectively from the point-of-view of when it was developed, I expect critics to take into consideration this isn't a new game, it's an enhanced edition of a 14 year old game. It shouldn't serve as an opportunity to review again the Baldur's Gate saga, or for any newcomer to evaluate it in function of what other games they are playing today.
There are many ways to tell a story. The RPG genre has historically tried to do just that. What Baldur's Gate did was present us back in 1998 with a whole new way of doing it. A way, that set new standards for games to this date. From Planescape: Torment, to Fallout, to the modern Skyrim, Dragon Age and The Witcher, all of them follow the same basic premises established 14 years ago by Baldur's Gate.
