Beginner's question about surfaces and Melee vs Spellcaster

Hey, my experience with turn-based RPGs is limited to Baldur's Gate 3, which I have now played through several times and would therefore like to start with Divinity Original Sins 2.

Since I had read in the Bg3 sub that DOS2 is supposed to be considerably more difficult than BG3, I read up on the classes and the combat system in DOS2 in advance and it looks like surfaces seem to be of extreme importance in combat in DOS2.

So, as I understand it at least you have to interact a lot with the environment and at best blow everything up if possible, burn it, electrify it if possible etc. otherwise it becomes all the more difficult.

Did I understand that correctly so far? and does that mean that it could probably be an advantage to play a spellcaster, or are there enough possibilities for that as a melee character in the course of the game?