I don't really consider it as wasted opportunity.
It's more like the game was 2-4 years ahead of it's time, technology wise. The graphics were pretty much on par or higher than when the game was teased, a lot of technologies to just limit vision and making so many obstacles appear and disappear at once. This coming out from a studio who mainly was stuck in 2D worlds in 3D space is a massive jump, that added with all sorts of verticality of map. Trains, AV's flying around, commercial AV's, events etc. The game wasn't ready to be shipped in it's full original vision and had to be downscaled.
I'm sure this is true for any company. If GTA 4 had budget of GTA 5, I'm sure they too would have all sorts of minigames and competitions and online mode.
In start when they were making the project, there was no idea how many copies were going to be sold. Preorders could always be cancelled and could easily indicate size of 80% of buyers if it's from a new studio with special type of franchise.
And even if you double the staff and make everything perfect, that wouldn't probably impress too many people. I've heard many say for example that the driving had something seriously wrong in it, but I never had problems, and I was playing with keyboard and mouse (aside few vehicles that were really slippery), people just expected this arcade-style driving from GTA I guess and nothing else was acceptable, no matter how realistic it would be.
There is this wierd juxtapose where people want companies to try something new and innovative, make games more realistic, make action difficult and deadly. And then when they get exactly that they whine and complain because they come into that moment with skepticism.
Co-incidently this is the same type of behavior that destroys relationships. Overly skeptic toward others, always on your toes, being unable to accept own faults and lack of openness. You can see people in YouTube prior to launch who were like these hyped teenage girls who just met new boyfriend, and "OH HE'S SO AMAZING, LOOK AT THOSE MUSCLES. HE BOUGHT ME FLOWERS FIRST DATE, REAL LOVE", and then it turns out he doesn't have a job to keep giving you those gifts, or was just using you for short term gains, that he has severe trauma that makes it harder to enjoy being with someone or trust.
[Sard Edit: Yes, let's not go here thanks.]
Going back to the topic (because I think I'm still justified on saying these things as they are somewhat related), I don't think there was this unmet expectation in the vast amount of people who actually bought the game and didn't refund it the first 1 hour of playing it.
It's the same thing with Warcraft 3 reforged that I've seen where the user score is like "0.6" and then you watch the reviews, EVEN from this year, where all the performance issues have been solved and you get "Very sad for such an amazing old game. The have completely ruin the title." as messages from 2022 reviews. How are you SURPRISED by what you get? And how is that still not working for you?
[Sard Edit: Let's not generalize to that degree, thanks.]
If Cyberpunk's expansion will "land" and people are actually hyped about it, that's GOING to change a lot of minds about the game. "Oh they DO CARE ABOUT THEIR CONSUMERS! THANK YOU CDPR! YOU'VE DONE A FANTASTIC JOB RENEWING THE GAME" is what they're going to be saying.
People just act angry because others tell them to. I've seen this happen so many times, in both media and relationships. You get into bad group of people who you think are your friends, and they poison your mind with lies and doubt.
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