I started playing Metal Gear Solid V and it's...kind of boring?

Preface to this is I'm a huge fan of the series in general. 1, 2, and 4 were all phenomenal games and each brought something so unique to gaming. (EDIT: I've played 3 but personally couldn't get past the awkward controls, as I only played it in 2020. I probably would've loved it if I'd played it at release)

After playing The Phantom Pain for a few hours it's hard to believe that it's part of the same legendary franchise.

I enjoyed Ground Zeroes. I also enjoyed the opening chapter of phantom pain. It was everything I was expecting from a MGS game; tight linear storytelling, bat shit crazy cutscenes, tense stealth action (albeit slightly on rigid rails when escaping the hospital).

But now that I'm in the open world bit, it all just seems a bit lacklustre. It seems like a standard AAA open world game with a thin metal gear veneer over it. Take over a bunch of outposts in a bunch of copy-paste missions. No cool cutscenes to look forward to, just endless cassette tapes. David Hayter no longer the voice of Snake?!

The Afghan environment itself is really bland as well. In previous games I was always eager to see where the story would go and what cool action set piece there'd be but I don't get that feeling from this game at all.

Am I being too quick to judge? What do you all think about it?

EDIT: seems like a lot of people share my opinion. But also it might be that I haven't given it enough of a chance and unlocked a huge variety of equipment. So I'll stick with it for a few more missions to see what other options open up.

EDIT 2: I played a few more missions, so clocked 7 hours total. It's definitely a decent action stealth game and it was a bit more fun once I unlocked some more weapons. But it continued to be repetitive and lacking the MGS spark. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I died on a mission and realised the most recent checkpoint was 30 minutes before...