Based on everyone telling me BotW and TotK are the finest games ever made, perhaps people just want mostly empty open worlds with basic combat and max five characters with personalities.

Have you played it after the 2.0 update? The combat feels awesome, as least my build did. I also disagree with the openworld being empty, driving around, listening to music, was one of my favorite things to do. Occasionally coming across little stories and unmarked encampments was really fun.

So did you just mash through all the dialogue and cutscenes or

Amen to that. Technical issues aside, it's one of the most shallow open world games I've played. There's nothing to do when you're not doing missions. There's no depth to the combat. It's a 5/10 at best for me.

Eh, at least as far as the combat goes I liked doing the Net Runner thing: hacking cameras left and right and killing off enemies before they ever saw me. That being said I put the game down when it became too much of a chore to get much anything upgraded. My combat style may have been suboptimal but I had fun with it.

I also didn't have any issues with bugs or graphical issues, but I also first played it pretty far into its life after they could fix plenty of things. Don't remember exactly when it was, but it was after the anime was no longer super relevant but before that big 2.0 update. I also know I played using some mods, and I can't remember if there was a mod that fixed a bunch of issues.

I think you’re one of the people who wanted a cyberpunk GTA game and didn’t get it.

The story is fucking amazing, some of the side quests will stay with you for a long time.

The combat and driving are fine, I endure both to get forward in the story.

There is some truth to what you say but the game is more than a sum of its parts. Even though individual strokes of game dev brush may be not perfect the whole package as of today creates memorable, even unforgettable experience.

CDPR has so many fanboys that they managed to convince other people that it was a good game.