Yes, but to get the full experience you should absolutely not use the Defender Weapons or Guardian Armour unless you get really stuck, because they completely shatter the base game's progression.
You should try a bunch of different weapons to get a feel for what you like early, because once you start progressing it's a pain in the ass to farm back up to where you were.
As for Iceborne, I personally think the base game is better, but once you finish that, it's worth getting if you're hungry for more. For a comparison, in the base game I completed literally every single quest and had crafted every armour + every variant of Longsword, Greatsword, and Hammer. In Iceborne I only beat the base game, did the first Arch-Tempered, and then burned out on Safi. Came back to try Alatreon with some friends but burned out on that quickly too.
Yes, but to get the full experience you should absolutely not use the Defender Weapons or Guardian Armour unless you get really stuck, because they completely shatter the base game's progression.
You should try a bunch of different weapons to get a feel for what you like early, because once you start progressing it's a pain in the ass to farm back up to where you were.
As for Iceborne, I personally think the base game is better, but once you finish that, it's worth getting if you're hungry for more. For a comparison, in the base game I completed literally every single quest and had crafted every armour + every variant of Longsword, Greatsword, and Hammer. In Iceborne I only beat the base game, did the first Arch-Tempered, and then burned out on Safi. Came back to try Alatreon with some friends but burned out on that quickly too.