I agree with your general point but since I stick to old games entirely these days, I haven't played either of the games you mentioned so I have no opinion of either, but yeah, hype definitely plays a big role and it always has. Difference is, games released when I was growing up, and lots of them were terrible so don't get me wrong, were at least more or less finished and while we couldn't play online, we also didn't have to deal with DLC, microtrans BS and all that bad stuff either.I prefer things where the open world or exploration parts are limited by story progression. That's one of the things I like about 3D Zelda games, the Xenoblade games, and one of the things I love about Fable games (even if they're generally not great). Honestly I think that hype plays a big part in how well games are received. We're at a point where even if a game doesn't deserve all the hype or deliver it's still considered "amazing" because nobody wants to admit this mainstream hyped game is overrated or underwhelming. I genuinely consider The Evil Within to be significantly better than The Last of Us (not a very relevant comparison, but still. My PS4 ran The Evil Within flawlessly so I have no comment on the performance issues).
As an aside, I'd prefer a game be released complete with PS2-level graphics(jaggies included!) than pay $60 for an incomplete game full of DLC scams. A good art style trumps things like poly count, texture res etc etc. See Capcom's 2d arcade games as well as many SNK games among countless others for good examples of that, because many of those games still look GOOD. Vampire Savior anyone?