I'm 40 hours in and i've only beat one main dungeon and around 20 shrines... and i'm having a blast! :D

It would probably have been a lifeless island after days of being out on sea. my raft would encounter a storm and be destroyed and I would be washed ashore. Link would grow a beard until a ship finally came and informed him of how hyrule was destroyed by Ganon and now he is moving on to other lands. That would be an interesting story, maybe they can do that with dlc

I'm around 140 hours into this game, still need to visit and uncover two-thirds of the map (the entire western side), need two more memories, have found 82 shrines, done just two Divine Beasts (went to the first after about 40 hours, the second at 100 hours) and found about 200 Korok Seeds (of which like almost 100 in Faron lol, they're everywhere there). It's unbelievable to think there's 900 of those to find.

I've been inside Hyrule Castle, which was awesome, and stood in front of the large hall where Ganon is (I assume) looking in, but I'm not going in until I feel I'm done. Which means I'm not going to fight Ganon until I found all the Shrines, beaten all four Divine Beasts and found all story elements. I'll probably easily touch the 200 hours mark when I'm finally finished.

This game is huge, especially considering when I'm finally done after a very long time of playing I won't even have completed it 100%. Comparing that to Skyward Sword, which on my first playthrough I did actually complete that a full 100%, which took me 73 hours. Or The Wind Waker HD 100%, which only took me (though obviously I played that before, but never 100% it) a little over 40 hours.

It's really just a game to play to get-away from like problems imo.

Yeah, you are. I don't know why anyone would say otherwise. There's tons of sidequests, some quite trivial. A lot of unique areas and things to explore and tons of things to discover on your own that adds to the excitement and thrill of adventure and discovery.

That being said the game is quite good that you'll still enjoy it by doing the main quests and the 4 major dungeons. Though I would argue that for the first time in the history of Zelda, the dungeons are the weaker point. They are probably the shortest in the series and instantly forgettable unlike the rest of the series. They do however are designed in a way that is essential to the games main plot and the concept is really freaking cool lore-wise. If they were big then they wouldn't make any sense to the story. I mean you wouldn't see someone driving around in a mile wide car, would you?

Trust me, you're going to be amaze playing this game and exploring. It'll be unlike anything you've experienced and the combat is amazing.