Fair! I had the same experience as you (down to having a faulty disc 💀). My friend circle loves Spider-Man 2, though admittedly they are more casual gamers than the people on Lemmy probably. That is definitely biasing my outlook.

Additionally, Spider-Man 2 had the same problem as TotK for me, which is similar gameplay mechanics without fixing the flaws or significant additions/changes from the first game (though ultrahand in TotK is pretty cool…)

GotY for me personally is probably between BG3 or Alan Wake 2 from the list.