This was also far and away my favorite game the year it came it. For me it was the perfect blend of gameplay and insanity in just the right portions. It was sane just long enough to be comfortable which made the Kojima twists significantly more effective than in any of the previous games.
I also loved the open world gameplay, but I seem to be completely disconnected from others on what I like on this front (I didn’t enjoy Breath of the Wild or Witcher 3). I think I prefer “open world” games that don’t actually use their open world. I prefer when they’re actually a bunch of connected mission maps with nothing interesting in between and an easy way to teleport from mission to mission, effectively removing the benefit of open worlds (which I don’t particularly like).
My favorite part about it is how it changes rules over time. The enemies slowly build up defenses to your preferred strategy which forces you to master one of the other approaches to missions. You’re also constantly gaining new equipment and partners that completely break long-held rules from previous missions. Both of those force a dynamic playstyle over missions that would otherwise play pretty similarly. Unfortunately, if you’re stopping only a few missions in you’ll certainly miss this part. But if you’d want to stop that early I’m not sure you’d enjoy these changes anyways.