How hated are Dark elves?

[Danth]

Broadly speaking, dark elf faction causes limited nuisance in the old world and moderate nuisance in Kunark but becomes irrelevant (like all starting factions) in Velious. In the old world, at high levels you'll spend a lot of time in Nagafen's Lair and Lower Guk and dark elves can wholly or at least partially use the closest cities to both of those places so that's a nice compensation for the nuisance encountered at low/mid levels.

Come Kunark I'm always annoyed that Karnor, Kaesora, and Charasis all trash the evil outpost faction while the good-aligned folks have no such downside although having a good starting faction for Worker Sledgemallet will be a nice bonus in a recharge-free world. Obtain that and any necessary high-level spells before trashing the faction, then feel free wreck it and never look back. It's not too hard to kill enough goblins to make the good outpost usable if desired.

Danth