As others said, it came out around the same time as games like Fallout 4, Arkham Knight, and Just cause 3, as well as the same year as the Witcher 3 at a time when open world Ubisoft style collection games were getting old. It very much comes off like a Ubisoft game, with meaningless collectibles and climbing towers (balloons) to reveal the landscape.
The car combat only gets good after enough upgrades, and those take way too long, the max level stuff requires a tedious level of grind to completely clear strongholds. You do the exact same things in 4 different regions to unlock the same basic stronghold upgrades over and over again, most scavenging locations don't give enough scrap to even justify getting out of the car, enemy strongholds are all basically the same with no incentive to do things like look for emblems complete bonus objectives, the larger strongholds all have the exact same boss fight against a big enemy just set in a slightly different arena, a boss mechanic that works almost identically to the actual story villain fights. Some of the locations are cool like the ones that go into caves or set on bridges over chasms, but not enough to really matter. The hand to hand combat is just acceptable Arkham knockoff with not enough enemy types to matter: basic enemy, basic enemy with weapon, tougher basic enemy that grabs you, dodgy enemy with knife, enemy with throwing spear, and enemy with shield, and the same mini boss big guy you only fight about 6 times.
Also, fuck whoever thought that mine clearing activity needed to be repeated in every region and required you to go back to a base to get the dog so you can drive a shitty buggy with no weapons to the location to slowly disarm exactly three mines in every spot, by the end I was just doing donuts in my main car and then bailing out after I hit a mine and just waiting for the car to repair itself.
That said, the game is gorgeous looking with its weather and vistas, and the souped up car combat once you get some upgrades is very fun, it just doesn't have much of anything else going for it. It's ok, and certainly worth its now discounted price, but it's very hard to justify a $60 price tag for a pretty Arkham knockoff in the same year Fallout 4 with its mods, the comparatively superior Arkham Knight, and Witcher 3 came out.
EDIT: Also, also, fuck those balloon towers, especially the ones that require you to hunt down gas cans to fill up a generator to use the balloon, I remember one of those spots requiring me to hunt down a gas can from a totally different camp because I stupidly used the only can at the site to fill up my car, I pretty much always carried a spare can in my car after that bullshit.
