I’m sure that is correct. It’s a 20-hour main story with many sidequests.
It’s supposedly a 30ish hour main story per the developers. GameSpot had the same experience as far as time goes. According to CDPR, they made the main story shorter than the one in Witcher 3 because their metrics showed that many players burned out before reaching the end of Witcher’s longer plot. All the side stuff is supposed to inflate it to around 100hrs of content if you’re doing “everything”.
Although we don’t have the Day Zero/One patches and “game ready” drivers yet, the poor optimization is a bit discouraging. The hardware tiers that were presented as for minimum/recommended at each resolution/setting seem to be unable to actually hit decent frame rates. Given the number of people who were buying hardware explicitly for this game (however wise that may be), that’s a hell of a ball to drop when you realistically should shift everything down a tier.
I actually think a shorter main story is great. Breath of the Wild was really only 30-35 hours if you did the main story. Doing everything else made it 100-120 hours for sure.
I loved Witcher 3, but the DLC and the sidequests were better than the very lengthy main story.
One review that I heard said that the stuff they are calling sidequests in CP77 can be pretty important to overall game play. They help you build/ strengthen alliances or something.
Yes, and it is like Fallout in the sense that the stuff you do around the city impacts the final endings. One review said that it was a lot longer than a “Fallout style epilogue” impact, but impacts the entire final hour+ of the game.
I have read some reviews that the endgame/final result can be wildly different. This is not Mass Effect’s different colors ending with a slight change in cut scene.
Apparently the opening sequence is likewise distinct depending which of the three archetypes you choose (Nomad/Street Kid/Corpo).
20 hours seems a bit too short for a main quest to take in a game like this. I understand we can get well into 100 hours with side quests and those can be great but still…20 hours? Sometimes I have found myself stumbling into the endgame before I really want to when this is done.
We’ll see soon enough. My weekend is clear. For once the pandemic helps. 
FYI: The game unlocks at 12p GMT which means for everyone in the US it will unlock this evening (7p EST).
So I have stayed away from reading about this game. I read articles about the development, marketing, etc but not the game itself - I understand the premise well enough to be totally hooked but want to go into my first playthrough close to totally blind.
So my question is… how bad are the bugs I hear about? Do I get it tonight or wait a few weeks?
Nobody will know until the true day 1 patch tomorrow. At present state , it is a dumpster fire.
The day 1 patch will be included when the game releases at 1 am Polish time, in like 1 hour, right?
I haven’t been able to figure out if it is included, or just available at that time. So it may unlock and then need an 8 hour download for all I can figure out, which is what I was assuming, but if included, then it should be today.
The buggiest major release in many years, but perhaps the Day 1 patch or over the next month, it will be fixed.
I’m waiting until June(I’m a teacher, summer break) to play it. Get it on sale, bugs hopefully fixed for the most part.
Does this game allow mods and the console like Bethesda games and Witcher 3?