GTA5 and Mafia2 are high quality gaming experiences IMO. I really feel like they got the balance right in GTA5 - between goofy and realism, and I found myself getting to almost 50% completion rather quickly, actually wanting to play the missions and not get overly distracted by the sandbox (which is impressive). What really helped was the checkpoint system, thank god for that.

As for Mafia - the first one got to be a drag for many reasons. But Mafia 2 - where's the love? One of my favorite gaming experiences.

I bring these games more into focus here because I would equate Skyrim to be more like GTA 4/5 in terms of sandbox, and Witcher 3 similar to Mafia 2. Both these games (W3 and Mafia2) have liveable breathable world that just exists for you to carry out great stories in. Still plenty to interact with, but not overly sandbox. There's a realism there where you carry out your life perhaps doing interesting things, but sometimes there's a huge stretch of not much happening to get there.

If Cyberpunk is halfway between Witcher 3 openness and Deus Ex Revolution, that sounds like a good balance.

Hopefully we'll have TW3:EE too around the time this one hits the shelves. :)

Most locations in a typical city are very mundane, so it is unclear to me how an OW city will work out. I think I'd rather have just the "locations of interest" mapped out.

I like large open-worlds, even if much of it is not related to the main game content. I would enjoy it if they have the tech to generate a full city, with subways, parks, office blocks, apartments that can be all be entered, with appropriate reactions. I'd find that extremely immersive, and I'd accept the downside of content perhaps feeling sparse in the expanse.

It'd be good to be able to take up cat-burglary or armed robbery, or perhaps join the Guardian Angels. I'd like to roleplay like that in a really convincing cyberpunk city.

Well, who said they'd make a typical boring city? I don't think that would be their aim…..

CDpr, from what I've read, will not go nostory sandbox garbage.
So no typical boring GTA5, Watch Dogs and similar crap. Unless they decide to change their first design rule - to respect players' time.