After thinking I hated it, and only seeing the negatives, I finished the game and can now say this is a fantastic entry to the series. This is a LONG post.

Sure there's some annoying things, things I wish they did better, but I love this game.

Honestly I think the story is great.
I saw a lot of people saying the story sucked, that it's "generic sci-fi garbage", and at first I fell onto that bandwagon, but after finishing it I can safely say I love it. I can't say it's better than the story in 2, I'm not sure that's possible (and I don't think you would be allowed to say that even if you thought so), but it's close for me, maybe I like them both equally.

First off, the main quest bosses. Holy shit the bosses are fucking amazing. They're fantastic. I think these are the best main quest bosses in the series. Their design and all their attacks is amazing. I loved fighting every single one of them, they were all cinema and the music for them was great. I can't think of any negatives of their designs, they were all great and I had a smile on my face fighting all of them.

I also really liked Callis and I loved the twist of her coming back. I felt a little bad about killing her (I know I'm weird, I sympathize with bad guys in games sometimes. I mean I didn't enjoy killing Alduin), so I was pleasantly surprised when she came back and learned that it wasn't her in the vision. I also really loved her doing her final "fuck you" to the Timekeeper and getting some revenge against him.

With the exception of Vile Lictor who's just flat the fuck out evil, the other two have more nuance.
Idolator Sol seems like he might have been a better person years ago, but in one of his echo logs it's insinuated he has been "killing" parts of himself just to appease the Timekeeper. All he cares about is making him happy and hoping the Timekeeper will be proud of him. The thought of the Timekeeper being displeased was crushing to him. He'd probably give himself a lobotomy if he thought it would make the Timekeeper happy.

And Callis realized the control the Timekeeper had on herself and others from a vision and defied him by ripping out her own bolt. She also seemed to think that ripping the bolts out of others was doing them a kindness and freeing them from the tyranny of the Timekeeper. She's a very broken individual, both from the Timekeeper and from the removal of the bolt.

I really loved the twist at the end, that the Timekeeper is the Guardian of Kairos' main vault. He's not just a twisted man trying to impose order on everyone for evil reasons, he was literally created and essentially programmed to protect the vault, like all Guardians. He really doesn't have a choice, so he really doesn't seem to understand why it's so wrong to control everyone else, as he himself has an order and a command he can't disobey. In a way I end up feeling bad for him.
It makes you think about all the other Guardians you killed in the series who had no choice, they're essentially slaves forced to follow one singular purpose.

Things people complained about that I feel are wrong:
"Legendaries are way too rare!":
In the end of the main quest, I ended up with about 15 legendaries (that I kept), so honestly I don't think they're too rare. I'm not sure why people were acting like they've never been rarer in Borderlands. They're fine.
The grind to get legendaries from encore stations also isn't bad and I also really welcome that you can just pay to respawn the boss, kill it, teleport back, and rinse and repeat.
You can also just flat out buy legendaries from Maurice's Black Market machine, and you get a legendary for doing Liliths's wildcard quests.

"Enemies are far too generic, there's barely any variation!":
I think there's plenty. Compared to Borderlands 2 and it's like 40 different loaders, maybe less sure, but it's not bad. Rippers can spawn with any kind of weapon (I saw people complaining that there's no rocket launcher rippers, there absolutely are, they're Cannoneers), the badasses summon turrets, they can have elements and additional modifiers like "healthy" or "shielded" or "centripetal".
Plinkers use small arms like pistols and smgs, Pulpers use shotguns, Rat-a-tats use assault rifles, Farshots use sniper rifles and 'Melic Rippers have similar mounted guns as Rafa.
Bruisers are also the Meatheads and Hotheads in this game.
I'm not gonna list every Ripper type but you get the point.

There's like 5 different kinds of Wildhorns, like 4 different kinds of Manglers, like 6 different kinds of Kratch and like 7 different kinds of Creeps.
There's also lots of variation in Order enemies as the game progresses.
Also Rippers can use Pangolins, Manglers and Wildhorns as mounts, which is pretty cool.

"Barely any humor!":
I believed this one too, and it made me kind of mad, but then I kept playing through the game and there's humor interjected all the time. Every single character in the game has funny moments and jokes. All of them. And the enemies are constantly shouting out jokes. I remember complaining about the lack of things like "nobody is allowed to kill my buddies but me!" but almost that exact line is in the game.
I've also heard "So I decided to go to the gym in the morning. Worst mistake of my life" or something along those lines multiple times. Psychos also still sometimes shout out potty humor. Which I like, sorry.
There's some pretty goofy modifier names too. I got a "Slutty Playful" Queen's Rest.
And the overtly sexual Horace and Yorick.

I've also noticed the random NPCs in cities are still just as quirky. Random NPCs pounding on doors is back from Borderlands 2.

Now what I will criticize:

-I miss midgets/tinks/whatever they would have been called here, though. There are small rippers but they don't have any difference in anything other than their size, no high pitched voices or anything, which is odd because badasses have their voices pitched down. They've mostly been replaced by Splices it seems.
I also miss Goliaths and unique loot enemies. I think I saw a golden Bulkhead 1 time but that was it. Yeah we have Zerkers and Phalanx, but they just aren't as... fun, and it's harder to level them up.
There are loot enemies, but they aren't really unique from what I can tell, except for the uniquely colored Bulkhead. I've seen some enemies explode with a bunch of eridium or cash and from what I can tell they don't look any different. Nothing pops out of containers anymore either.

-Claptrap has had his time in the game significantly lessened. Some might cheer and pop champagne over this but I feel he's a very important part of the games, he's essentially the mascot.
He's in this game the least out of any game in the series. Not sure why, I don't know if people got sick of him or what, but he has I think one quest he's directly involved in, some lines he says for bounty boards, some lines he says for caches, and he speaks later for about 8 seconds near the end of the game before he's cut off by other characters and you never hear from him again.

He's also not really ever seen past the very beginning of the game, the quest with GenIVIV and the end of the ship repair quest for about 10 seconds. In the other games he's right there in the main city area, but here he's just... nowhere. I even went back to where you originally meet him, and the outpost, but he's not there.
He no longer exists in the game anywhere as far as I can see. Seems like they don't want him involved in the game very much anymore.

-The inventory system is awful. I know it's subjective but I hate it.

-I miss the different vehicles. Being able to summon one at any point is cool, but I miss the different types and different weapons and all the upgrades.

-The vault Guardians are all way too similar in appearance. They all have pretty much the same main body shape.