Honestly, most of the criticisms of open world games aren't central to the concept. It's honestly more than anything the drive for biggerer and morer that's causing problems. There are open world games that are smaller in terms of overworld size that are a lot better designed as a result.
Ground Zeroes is a really good example. A lot of players turned their nose up at it, but it has EASILY the best open world I've ever played. As in, it's actually designed for GAMEPLAY. One section over here for tight corridors, check your corners, kind of stealth. One area over here for open space, crawl on yer belly like a snake kind of stealth. A couple of areas that are somewhere in between. One area over here is an actual fortress, where security is tighter, enemies have a better range of vision up on the walls, and there's (almost) nowhere to hide. Then there's the prison by the cliff, which is mostly obscured by a large rock so it's kind of its own little area. Makes sense we because there's a cutscene there. There's an area outside the actual base with no enemies and elevated terrain so you can scope things out and call in your helicopter(s). There are a couple of roads, and a bridge, and a few towers here and there that can add a strategic element to things, since they have better visibility and you can sort of informally capture them.
Now, none of those individual parts are particularly unique, but together, they make a world that's in a completely different league from your typical 17 square miles of desert crap. But honestly, we're just getting started.
Enemies are assigned on a per-mission basis, meaning that while the world is geographically the same, your approach might have to be completely different. And they're not just standing around, or even walking in circles. Their patrols might take them all the way across the map, and they might be walking or running. Sometimes new enemies will enter on a schedule, or on a trigger when you reach a certain part of the mission. Some of these guys will climb ladders or towers to perform lookout duty for a while. Some of them are driving trucks, and get in/out on a schedule to go do other things. Some are actively looking for intruders, while others are just transporting supplies but might see you anyway. Some guys are placed on top of the fortress wall with rifles, or recoilless rifles. All carefully designed as a specific custom-tailored challenge instead of just puked everywhere by a random number generator. Some of them are running behind on their schedule and are jogging from place to place.
And if memory serves, there are only eight collectables, and they unlock an extra mission.
Kind of unfortunate, but IMO they made one major mistake, and that was not altering the enemies' vision range for the smaller environment compared to TPP. It made going full stealth on a number of missions psychotically difficult.