Need to lower my expectations!!!!

So i decided about a week before launch that i would read all the books and play all the games before playing W3. Now that most of you have played the game quite a bit,i would like to ask a few questions

- How is the monster hunting? What is the normal flow of a witcher contrat? And i want to hear both the good and the bad.

- Is the whole people moving in to areas you have ridden of monsters well done?

- Are there really rare monster you can hunt down?

- Are there big sea monsters?

Basically i need to know how good the monsters part of the game actually is, because i think my expectations are through the roof at this point, and i will be disappointed.