There is a difference between a game being bad or heavily flawed and a game just not being up ones personal taste.

I dislike Dark Souls because of it's slow movement. That doesn't mean that is a flaw or an issue. It is a slow paced and methodical game and that and it's high difficulty are it's main appeals.
Me liking fast paced action games more doesn't make Dark Souls inherently inferior.

I like Metroid Dread much more than Metroid Prime because I dislike the much slower movement and much lower difficulty in Prime. That doesn't change the fact that it's an incredibly well designed game and a lot of fun.

Very often people call something in a game a flaw that I consider to be one of the best parts of the game or simply an important part of what makes it great. The weapon durability in BotW for example is not a flaw or a mistake. It is a necessary system that is meant (and does it very effectively) to force the player to not just always use the same weapon and get more creative in combat.

Saying the physics system is meaningless and unnecesarry is like saying cappy in Super Mario Odyssey is a poorly implemented mechanic.

There is only one game that I have played, that I consider to be perfect and that is Super Mario Galaxy 2. But I like it less than the first Galaxy, Sunshine and Odyssey. I think Odyssey is easily the best Mario game, but Sunshine is my favorite.

There are big differences between quality and preference.

I just found out that my horses from BotW were all transfered over to TotK. That's awesome. But somehow it's not from my latest playthrough but an earlier one. Interesting.

Just fought my first story boss and it took some effort more so than most of the final bosses in the series. 

We also need to consider that for some people, this does not make the experience more enjoyable

The Last of Us 2 has one of the best voice acting and expressions I've seen in a video game before, and it's a marvel from a technical standpoint. This is an objective fact that cannot be argued

Some people however don't care for voice acting and expressions in cutscenes, so for those people it's a voided quality

For me, I don't see the appeal of fusing stuff, so when they showed this on the demo everything I gave was a big yawn, don't really care if it is an innovative mechanic never done before I just don't see myself making mutch use of it 

Just encountered a huge and really cool designed boss monster in the underground. I threw a light seed into the dark and there this thing was sitting and then it turned around, bigger than a hinox, and I went "Holy shit!"
The fight was very fun and engaging.

And then I realised that this is very similar to a certain boss enemy from A Link Between Worlds.

The underground is very interestingly designed topographically.

I've just seen someone call Tears of the Kingdom a Genshin Impact wannabe.
Now I've seen everything.

Funny thing, today I had a discussion in a friend's chat group, and I said the same thing except it was the opposite...

Yeah the people who criticize the games seem to just be people who don't like open world games or just didn't want to zelda formula to change to open world because they think of Zelda very specifically as the pre-BotW Zelda formula.

Basically everyone else that doesn't hold those biases loves BotW (and presumably TotK). BotW is definitely one of the coolest and most engrossing games I've ever played. I do love the old Zelda formula, but I think it is better for new 2D Zelda games, while 3D should stick to the open world formula which is just so much more engrossing.

So yeah I agree, the criticisms seem to be personal bias, while the compliments are more objectively based like talking about how amazing the gameplay is and how amazing the open world is and the freedom is and so on. Not to say their are valid more general objective criticisms for BotW, cuz the game ain't perfect, though hoping TotK went a long way to perfecting it.

Been playing for a few hours and the exploration aspects and sense of wonder is still as amazing as in BOTW. The visuals are pretty much the same (which I’m fine with because the only problem I have with that is the resolution, not the actual visual buildup and style) but performance seems to be improved over BOTW despite the larger scale, it feels smoother. I’m hoping the Ultrahand part of it will grow on me, as that kind of things has never been my cup of tea. I can see things getting tedious because of it, but I hope I’m proven wrong.

I do wish they’d go for a more straightforward approach to gameplay and level design (while keeping it open world) and not turn the series into a single player Minecraft or Fortnite action RPG.. And damn do I wish they’d have figured a different approach to weapon durability and the combat balance that’s tied to it. But it is what it is. Will have to get deeper into the fuse mechanic to see if this makes things more compelling than what was found in BOTW. But I still think the weapons break way too quickly and easily. Bordering on ludicrous.

But… So far, I’m enjoying my time with it. The intro when turning the game on for the first time was excellent. The tone and atmosphere were gripping, and the story setup is intriguing and compelling.

Currently at work, so I can’t play for the next 10 hours. But it sticks to my mind the whole time and I can’t wait to get back to it after my work shift. So it’s certainly doing a lot of things good!!

The game’s combat is balanced around that very mechanic, so you’ll have a hard time through the game if you don’t learn to use and appreciate it.