Any form of media can be criticized, that's the nature of it... but RDR 2 is widely considered to be among the best games ever made.

Is there going to be someone out there who doesn't like it? Sure, take absolutely any game whatsoever and there's someone out there who will tell you it's not good... but by any reasonable measure: critical reception, awards, lasting cultural impact, influence on future games, it's almost across the board on the positive end of the spectrum. You're of course free to dislike it, but claiming it to be a "serious letdown" treats your singular point of view as if it were a consensus, when the actual consensus is overwhelmingly the opposite.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at all given how different people's tastes and preferences are, but I couldn't feel any less in agreement. RDR2 was an incredible experience I still haven't come close to completing purely due t my enjoyment of the immersive content you're deriding. It's not a perfect games by any means but the amount of awe I get from the systems in the game and the immersion it gives me is enough to have me extremely excited for GTA 6 as someone who was previously extremely skeptical of it living up to anywhere near its hype.

This is a perfect articulation of why even 13 years later, I still have no motivation to beat GTA 5. It worked great as a quasi-movie but not a video game.

I enjoyed Deus Ex: Mankind Divided but even it had too many cut scenes, come to think of it, so did Metro Exodus.