Resident Evil 4 is objectively perfect.

I think it should be more of a "here is the things I didn't like in the new God of War" than a "God of War is not a masterpiece and here's why". What if people simply didn't care about the points mentioned? It didn't detract from the experience for me. There's a thread on Resetera full of people trashing on Breath of the Wild, especially the weapon breaking mechanics and how reviewers should subtract 2 points of the game's score based on that. But what if some people simply didn't care about it or, as crazy as it sounds, liked that feature? I for one loved that, it was really well implemented in my opinion. I think the exercise of nitpicking stuff and trying to find reasons why a game shouldn't have a 95 score on Metacritic a waste of time. When you go to a game with the mindset of "it cannot be that good" you're obviously going to have a different experience than someone who goes into it with a "I hope it's really good" mindset. I'm not saying that this is the case here, but that's why I think those discussions are kinda futile.

Recency bias is strong in this thread!

I see people claiming that God of War is better than TLoU. I have a feeling if GoW came out in 2013 and TLoU came out last week they would be saying the opposite.

I think OP is actually being too kind to the game based on what I have played thus far. I'm currently at *spoiler* The part with the woman who lives under a giant turtle. Never thought I would be running around picking flowers in a freaking god of war game! This is pathetic!

The story has simply not moved me yet. Maybe I will be eating my words by the time I finish the game but right now I am just not feeling the story. The kid just seems whiny to me. Ellie on the other hand was a character I actually genuinely liked. Plus the performances in this game are nowhere near as good as the ones in TLoU. That part that OP mentions is similar to the scene in TLoU, the end of the chapter where you play as Ellie, except it is nowhere near as powerful and just comes across as awkward and out of place like OP said.

However all of this would not matter to me if the gameplay was good. This is of course personal preference but I much preferred the style of the previous god of war games. Combat/puzzles/enemies are all boring and repetitive. I hope to god the Ax is not the only weapon throughout the entire game. That would be incredibly disappointing. The only good boss battle so far has been with the stranger and for all the hype that received it still would not make my top ten favorite GoW boss battles. I know QTE's have gotten a bad rap in recent years but that is because lesser games misused them. God of War was always one of the few series that did QTE's right and I am really missing them in this new game.

I had the same reaction after playing RE4 except a bit more fluid

Please don’t let Neil anywhere near God of War.

I'm not a big fan of "story" games either.

What do you mean 'either'? This isn't a comment on story driven games, it's a comment on GOW not being a Masterpiece. I'm a fan of story driven games (especially when done well).

I the term "story game" to refer to one that is linear and has a great deal of cinematics incorporated into it.  Not a knock, just a preference against that style.  Truth be told, I've never played any God of War game.  But the majority of your complaint seemed stemmed from the story part of this game hence my comment.  

My reason for not agreeing with the media that this is a masterpiece is based upon the comparisons with TLOU that were thrown around willy-nilly by some sites, one actually saying it was better. A lot of people on some forums and on Twitter translated that to mean the story telling and narrative arcs where better. I decided to address this and so obviously I'm going to centre my argument around that premise. I love a well made story driven game, which was the focus for many reviews and pundits. On playing it, I immediately noted it wasn't anything close to TLOU but it isn't terrible as a whole, just badly incorporated at moments of high emotional impact, something that needs a tight mechanic in order to maximise the pay off. Levity is something that can be thrown in without so much focus, unless you're making a comedic game, and then the focus has to be equally as well crafted. 

GOW isn't a linear game like TLOU, although that had many open spaces. The term used for this is 'open linear'. GOW is pseudo open world and is designed similarly to Demon's Soul or Bloodborne, meaning you can explore for hours without coming across a cut scene. However, when you do, it HAS to follow the same criteria as TLOU design wise but of course not tonally.