Maybe that's cause I'm 50+ years old and I've played Zeldas and open world games whole my gaming life.

Simply put, BotW formula is not very much to my liking, neither as open world game, and especially not as Zelda game. There is some really good stuff in it, but there is just not enough to make it something that I like or care for very much, especially since lot of old stuff was thrown away. So, if Zelda keeps on in this direction, I'll just move on from it, like I did with some other IPs I loved so much that were too drastically changed - there's never really shortage of great games out there.

I've also been playing Zeldas my whole life and I lack your cynicism. 

Game's a damn masterpiece and I genuinely don't know how you or anyone could say otherwise. 

Incidentally I was just in a call with a friend, and he was ranting for about 10+ mins about how he doesn't like Tears of the Kingdom or BOTW and doesn't understand the appeal.
A few days ago some other friends of mine were saying similar things.

It's a bit of a strange feeling when something is getting critical acclaim, but almost everyone I personally know dislikes it.
I'm also in that camp of not being interested in BOTW from what I played, and it's not the first time I've been on the complete opposite end of the popularity spectrum. For me God of War 2018 was about a 5/10 in terms of how entertaining it was, but most people seem to love it to death.

For Zelda I think it's mainly series fatigue for me, more so than the different direction.
It used to be a series that elicited a very magical feeling for me, where I couldn't wait to play the new one. And the ride home after buing a Zelda game felt like an eternity.
Nowadays I don't feel interested. And when I force myself to play, I don't get into it, with the exception of A Link Between Worlds.
I wish that wasn't the case. Because few games have been as magical to me as Zelda games.

The Depths are amazing! What a great twist. I guess we might find the origin of the Gloom in the depths and justifications as to why Calamity Ganon could reappear from time to time.

The Depths are amazing! What a great twist. I guess we might find the origin of the Gloom in the depths and justifications as to why Calamity Ganon could reappear from time to time.

Man when I left off yesterday I had a plan on what to do first thing, when I got time to play today, before mucking around. I achieved exactly 0% of those goals because I got distracted by something that seemed exciting within 2 min from launching the game.

Man I love it!

So when is the Hyrule Warriors for this game coming?

Yeah that's always sad. Pesky Germans with their big ugly rating on my boxes. Luckily though, most normal physical copies here don't have it, and only have the PEGI one, because we usually have our own version or we share a version with France or the UK so it's only these big boxes that are for a bigger part of Europe that have it. Also, thankfully there's no classification logo at all on the game-case itself so that's neat.

It got really bright alright when exiting the cave for the first time. But that's not HDR, it's just bright SDR, still a very limited contrast range giving that washed out look, just now at the high end of the spectrum. The picture settings are fine, it's the same input I use the Series X on and Sea of Thieves looks absolutely stunning. But I'll check if it has RGB range options, as well as on the Switch. But it looks like they match, it's just the game is in SDR trying to do both dark and bright environments within a limited range.

Anyway, I've also had very little time so far to try the game. At least the cave sections were clearly visible at night (although grey ish), not drowned out by high ambient clear sky daytime lighting. I haven't even gotten to the first shrine yet or anywhere really. It doesn't have that instant appeal effect BotW had so I preferred catching up on sleep over digging in :)

oh, I get not liking it. There's plenty of games out there that are masterpieces that I personally can't stand. Mass Effect Trilogy is a great example. Pretty much all of that team's games I dislike...but that doesn't make them bad. 

I can 100% understand why someone might not like what Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom do. They have a very specific appeal and some people don't care for that. I get there's plenty of reasons not to like a masterpiece like Red Dead Redemption II, given its adherence to a sort of simulation feel instead of feeling video gamey. I get it, but there's a difference between 'a game that I don't like' vs 'a bad game'. 

I do not understand how anyone can look at Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom and say they aren't masterpieces. (And no, 'the framerate ain't great' or 'the resolution is less than I'm used to' are not good arguments.) The arguments people are using just make no damn sense to me....and this guy up here complaining about it just means he doesn't have the ability to read up on a game first or is just being critical for the opportunity to bitch about stuff. HE didn't like Breath of the Wild, said he didn't think Tears of the Kingdom looked great, then bought it anyway and is bitching about how it's not that special. Who does that? why would anyone do that? What could be gained from deliberately buying a game you don't think looks good AND is a sequel to a game you didn't like? IT sounds less like actual criticism and more like hipster talk, deliberately looking for reasons to bitch about the popular thing.