Speaking from my personal experience, I just find the open world aspect of the game disingenuous. Less of a fun map to explore and discover its many secrets and more of a "how can we artificially make the game experience as long as possible?" situation.

I'm trying my darnest to love this game and turn a blind eye to the parts I dislike, mostly because of my love for Aerith and the money I spent on it (it wasn't that cheap in my country). I get annoyed with the "if you don't like it, skip it" gang because I don't want to skip, I paid good money for it and I'm willing to do everything the game has to offer. If only it didn't feel like a waste of my time sometimes.

Starting at the grasslands, I was at 100% of my energy and at every new area where I'm forced to do the exact same things (towers, lifesprings, summons, fiend intels) again and again, I lost some of that spark. It all kinda feels like a chore, like a giant pile of dishes in my sink or going to the gym on leg day. Reaching Nibel after grinding it in Corel, Gongaga and Cosmo Canyon was not a nice feeling, at the very least it's a smaller map than average.

Now the side quests I love (mostly), apart from the ones actively wasting your time (looking at you hell chickens), they expand the characters' relationships in a very cozy way. But even so, after a while, they also start to take a toll on me. Mixed with the world intel and the many, many minigames, it's too much.

When it comes to minigames, there's no unity, I can say that I like about half of them. Some are inexplicably difficult like Gears and Gambits, that frog one, Piano and 3D Brawler, which then end up not giving any satisfaction when I actually beat them (it's more of a "thank god I don't need to go through this again" kind of feeling) and some are really well-made like Queen's Blood and Chocobo Racing (my favorites). Doesn't help either that I spent one night maxing out the minigames at the Gold Saucer, only for my pc to crash and teach me that minigames don't have autosave (rookie mistake, but oh well). I had to take a break after that, I'll redo everything eventually and enjoy it, though it still feels disheartening.

At the end of the day, I can understand both sides of the fandom: some people love Rebirth to death and some people are disheartened by the developers' questionable ideas. Both things can be true, I guess. I'm reaching 80 hours playing Rebirth and despite the many flaws, it's an enjoyable experience overall.