As excited as I was for this game, the opening hours didn't really spark anything in me. The setup is sort of anticlimactic, it presents this open space for you to explore, but moving through that space doesn't feel good and exploration is only really rewarded with small amounts of money. The game starts you off with a purposefully shitty bike, that doesn't go fast or feel particularly good to ride, but then once you get your actual real bike it doesn't end up feeling that much better, I think in part due to the speed and the emptiness of the world.
Then they do the Death Stranding thing where you get to the first big open stretch, and a song with lyrics starts playing while you traverse the space, and my body's natural reaction to this is to get choked up and feel things because it's such a cool way to heighten the emotions while letting you absorb how big this space is. The problem is that this space is little more than just "big." There's not a lot to do but go from point A to B, and when the traversal feels just ok, and the landscape is really just empty space with some rocks here and there, there's not much incentive to continue "just going forward" after you've seen a few different landmarks and satisfied yourself with the sparse rewards therein.
I'm really interested in the story, from what I've heard of it, but I also don't really know if this is a unique enough experience to justify being a Big Old Open World Game, even if it is a short one.