HZD got abandoned first time round. The combat seemed inscrutable and grindy if, like me, you're a dumbass who can't work out the elemental damage indicators. But once you've cracked the formula it's both satisfying and creative. HZD combat has that magic "I'm a boss" factor when you get in that groove.
Story-wise you also get rewarded for persistence. The tribal politics and hokey spiritualism kinda grated but slow reveal of Project Zero Dawn explained why I see so many youtube videos about its masterful sci-fi worldbuilding. Machine animals are cool. Machine animals generated by a terraforming AI as part of a multimodular system for repopulating the Earth after a Skynet-type apocalypse is super cool.
Aloy's origin is straight out of the YA books of my childhood but beyond that she feels kinda flat. She is set up as this kid from a small village that never expected to see beyond its limits, who is thrust into a huge world (and map) and a story millions of years in the making. However, the glib and know-it-all way she interacts with this huge world saps the wonder and scale out of the player experience. One absence that jumped out was the lack of cut scene (or moment of pause) upon getting to Meridian. Sure it might not lend to the open world play-style but man did we lose the weight of what should have been a crucial character moment of wonder and awe.

TLDR: hittin dat freeze canister and hearing RIICCCCOOCOCOCOCOOOO