The worst part is that some some side quests are absolutely vital for fully understanding the ending, and all side quests do a good job of further adding depth to the world, there's just too many and like 5 get dumped on you after a story quest and the pacing of them is bad.

If they had cut some out, and made more of the lines untied to story (just mean, so you could do the whole thing start to finish anytime it seems fun) it would have been much better.