I don't like that the plot is all about illithids (boring)
Mind Flayers are the hook, but its a full on brawl between supernatural factions by the end. You get a healthy number of gods, devils, and undead monsters all piling in.
I don't really see the need to make psionics its own thing when you already have the eight schools of magic and plenty of overlap.
I don't mind psionics as flavor, broadly speaking. Giant floating brains that get Detect Thought and Telekinesis at will and squid monster mad scientists with high level divination/enchantment spell lists that feast on your grey matter are as legit fantasy tropes as goblins or vampires or oozes.
I mean, a lot of the time its just how the DM runs the game. They make it a meat grinder and the players go in expecting a meat grinder, so you get a full table of That Guys because... otherwise your character gets turned to paste inside the first ten minutes of the game.
I remember the RPGA in college and it absolutely minted "That Guy" players because so many of the DMs were just in it to collect scalps.
The most iconic “monsters” in dnd are gonna be Dragons, which aren’t really dnd exclusive in any way, mind flayers, and beholders. There’s no way we weren’t getting at least one of those last two to play a big part. They’re just too great of designs not to be used.
Yeah mind flayers suck, and it sucks that anything involving the underdark has to so heavily involve them. Give me more svirfnebli if we must go to the fucking underdark
(I've never played Baldur's Gate 3 so I have no idea whether we get svirfneblin action but I have read R.A. Salvatore's books and this reminded me to rant about it)