As a long time Baldurs Gate fan... Story was NEVER a strong point in the games. Or characters even. Baldurs Gate was always in every iteration a very classical RPG story with fun gameplay attached.

No one plays Baldurs Gate the dark alliance for the story. People play it because it allowed them to experience DND mechanics in a virtual setting. The co-op was an amazing bonus.

It's also important to note that Baldurs Gate as a series, was spawned in a time where "Cookie cutter RPGs with the same aesthetic, story and near identical world" was rampant. You'd find a million games that felt like they could be set in the same world by different publishers and quite frankly they would all blurr together. Baldurs Gate is merely one of the few games of that era that managed to become a franchise.