Oh, I was doing the same. I played Witcher 3, loved it and saw the original teaser trailer for Cyberpunk back then. I avoided everything as much as I could. I never watched the gameplay, I never saw Night City Wire, etc. Because I know things get overhyped easily, but overhype is not the only reason why Cyberpunk has so many problems. I loved my 2 playthroughs of Cyberpunk. Both were so much fun, I completed them on PS4, ignoring the bugs and crashes. And that's why the missing impact of choices and the "7" endings burn so much more.That what happens when you listen to promises made and words spoken before the release. Personally i'm trying to remain deaf and blind and judge the game itself without any prejustices and expectations. That said, you have the point — CP77 is, indeed, a step down in comparison with W3.
The game has really good and round characters. The world feels very atmospheric. The character-related sidequests let you discover certain aspects of this world in more depths (for example Rivers questline is about the law, corruption, justice. Judy is about loss and revenge.). And then the short main story, who pushed you to ignore sidestuff because you need to hurry, V is dying, breaks your immersion by loading a save before the point of no return, stopping the whole fun you had just doing the sidecontent. Great. In my opinion, and I've said that before, the game would have been better with more of these sidequests and no main story at all.