Maybe if they had delayed it 6-9 months it would had been a different story.
I don't think the map is empty and devoid of life like many have mentioned, you can clearly see they tried to go with a SR2 approach and placed "Interesting Points" through all the map, it really feels vivid city. You can see NPC's doing all kinds of things like talking to each other, sitting or standing outside stores, chilling in parks, walking on the street and all kinds of stuff. I really appreciate that they tried to make it work.
But on the other hand it falls short in 2022 because the AI is still in 2006 era... they are so devoid of reactions like any modern title and they do absolutely NOTHING to react to player actions apart from the emotes or them just running away when chaos makes itself present. The Desert location as playground is ok, but i feel most of it is just deserted areas with nothing in them. LITERALLY.
The world also needed to be more interactive, like being able to buy drinks from soda machines, rob NPC's and Stores and there aren't any animals roaming apart from the vultures on the sky. Altough yesterday i swear i saw something that looked like a tiny blue bird trying to land behind me and i thought "wow i didn't knew this was a thing!" but when i turned around there was nothing and i was very confused on what i thought i saw. If anyone has seen this please let me know because i swear i saw it.
Exploration is fine, but it falls short in regards to finding secrets as there isn't much to do outside of missions. There are only three types of "Secret" Collectables, The drugs stash, the gargabe dive-in and the Monumental Photos. And they're ok but it also makes you feel it needed way more to do.
Another thing that was missing was that the city needed more open buildings to explore, i mean SR2 had a lot of those and there is no single open building outside of missions and the lack of ACTUAL open stores as tiny stands for clothes just does not cut it for me... i mean i remember being able to inside the Police Department, the prison, the college with a basket ball court, Random Open Restaurants, Malls and Plazas with actual food, weapons and clothes and all kinds of places just to explore.
The game isn't as serious as they made us believe, perhaps it was just a marketing tactic, butit really is just SR4 all over again. The story and characters are still incredibly silly, just less over the top. I wish they had keep all those high tech laser gun and sword stuff out of the game and stick to just regular firearms, i've never been a fan of Sci-fi or Space themed franchises. I am more of a Medieval or Modern age type of stuff. But i guess i am the exeption and minority here.
The kill moves are fun, but repetive with little variation and they take waaaaaaaay too long, they needed to have much more, be super quick but cool looking. Instead they look silly like the screwdriver headbut. All that while eveything in the world stops around with NPC's just there watching and waiting for you to finish so silly lol.
Even with all the weird and broken things goin on, i still want to go back because the game at it's own IS FUN. But everything else falls short because it's technically nearly broken but playable or was the wrong choice like the story and characters.