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[beri]

What are the first things you look for in the kingdom before your game begins?

Personally: villages, trashers, +Buy

[Will(ow|iam)]

Scoring, then just "cards that are strong."

[BryGuy]

a strategy. first i see if an engine is viable, if not then big money.
to what degree is there to draw/filter.
to what degree is there to trash.

[Imrahil3]

I look for something unexpected, sometimes to create a more interesting experience and sometimes because I don’t want to bank on winning the split for an important card if a less-obvious strategy would be more reliable.

[J Reggie]

I still use Adam Horton's strategy of looking for Attacks, trashing, villages, and draw. It's also important to see how much you can conceivably do in a turn. If there's no +buy, is there a way to gain multiple provinces in a turn? Or a way to somehow get more VP or hurt your opponent in some meaningful way? Otherwise, there's a limit to how much you want to build.

[Geronimoo]

Look for broken synergies and exploit them. If not there, look for strong synergies and exploit those. Lastly look for any synergy and incorporate that in an overall cohesive strategy (like engine, big money or rush).

[segura]

You gotta look at everything, otherwise you misevaluate the Kingdom. Rough categories help like, is there trashing/junking/gaining/drawing/sifting. But it is not multiplayer solitaire so next you think about potential strategies and how that influences the dominant strategy. If there is e.g. Marauder but it is not clear that Marauder is all that good, you can put less emphasis on trashing than you would have to if it were more likely that a junker gets bought.

Also, flexibility is a concept that is often ignored early on. Like, is your opening fairly committal or is it flexible enough to react well and quickly to your opponents choices.

[NoMoreFun]

If I'm taking things very seriously, Attacks/trashing/+buy/villages, and just cards I know to be good (AdamH's list is a good starting point, available here).

Then I see if any cards go nicely together. If there's an interaction that isn't immediately obvious that I notice, there's a chance my opponent didn't and that may give me the edge to win the game.

In general though I just look for what I think will be a good opening. I had a pretty good working knowledge of what the strong openings were back in the Isotropic days and the habit never left me. It's more of a cursory glance at the rest of the kingdom with the above in mind than a proper checklist. I'm more likely to go through the above process waiting between turns than at the beginning, and my opponents choices often spur on thinking. Not even sure I play that much better when I spend a long time looking at the kingdom before buying my first card (that's not advice, that's just my experience).