I'll preface this by mentioning that FF VII is not a game I played "back in the day", but only recently, and as such I had a relatively poor experience with the OG compared to what all the hype/fandom had lead me to expect - and I really think that VII aged poorly compared to some of its 16 bit counterparts, VI aged much better imo, but anyway - so I was going into Remake with much lower expectations to begin with.

With that out of the way, I had quite a wonderful time with FF7R.
The story was compelling, the English dub was more than competent (it felt a bit out of place / odd at times, especially coming from XVI, which was decidedly made with the English voiceover in mind, but nothing too egregious in 7R) and the banter between Aerith and Cloud was especially great.
Combat allowed for fast-paced action, especially with either Tifa or Yuffie, and a good variety of builds overall.

The soundtrack was pretty great, with a few memorable (to me) songs.
Pacing didn't feel as bad as what I've seen mentioned in a number of reviews, I really didn't mind it, even while doing all side quests available during my only playthrough. There was a fair amount of variety in said side quests.
I wish we saw more Fort Condor games, because those were surprisingly addictive in Intermission!

In hindsight, I kind of wish I'd gone for FF VII Remake directly, instead of playing (regretfully) VII first a couple years ago.
Hopefully Rebirth will be just as good!