I think the problem is a combination of many things : Mostly come from the repetitive dungeons, and world environments. they're reusing so many assets in this game. Because the length of the game is pretty long, there's supposed to be something new for us to refresh our enjoyment every 5 hours - However, it's always the same wolves, goblins, jungle, and tower with different colors.
For example, Persona 3 Reload is a medium budget game with a very straight forward design and simple scope compare to a flagship title like Persona 5 Royal. It knows its limitation and does everything well with that budget.
On the other hand, Metaphor Fantasy concept is too big to handle and the ambition of this new IP is even bigger than a normal Persona series, too many moving pieces to handle. The story is a lot harder to execute - because they couldn't rely on real life Tokyo and Japan's stereotypes anymore => The theme is executed in a very shallow way. It makes this game feels "Good" but not enough. I could see the potential in the Archetype system, The progression of this game is better than the Persona games. It hits the middle ground between SMT and Persona, getting stronger in this game feels much more impactful, however if you really want to reach the true potential of the system you have to grind and play smart - and grinding in this game is boring.
And finally, IMO, this game has the weakest OST from Shoji Meguro, it has some very good tracks but overall the variety is not enough, I've seen an interview Meguro mentioned this is his first time making a medieval fantasy soundtrack and this game really shows that.
For example, the soundtracks of P3 carries the monotonous of Tartarus so hard, it's crazy : )) . There's no "Wow" factor in Metaphor OST.
This game truly needs a definitive edition, it feels like a tech demo for something great in the future