I remember it being the opposite. You could hit level 50 extremely fast and enemies didn't stand a chance. Stealth builds were too powerful as the multipliers on headshots and criticals even with silenced weapons ended up 1 shotting everything except boss level characters.
Crafting was not as good as it was now but it wasn't actually broken. In fact I think part of the issue with the item/crafting system at launch was the sheer amount of them. So many items, so much junk, and much of it in combination with the throwables made for an odd upgrade loop.
However, both of the systems worked - they just weren't optimized. A broken system would mean your character actually didn't level correctly, the skill trees didn't mesh, or level scaling didn't work at all so stats would not matter. Skill trees were confusing for some, but if you took a few minutes (and read all the tutorials) it wasn't difficult to grasp.
I do remember the cyber psychos being damn difficult at launch but it is still the same now. At the beginning of the game you just don't have the tools to deal with them. Part of the issue is you get introduced to the first few cyber psycho missions mere minutes after the prologue section ends with little knowledge about all the game systems. Understandably you get rolled - and you should. They are supposed to be so difficult that only Max Tac deals with them. Consequently, this is also a larger feature of Cyberpunk 2077 in that the entire map and a good ~70% of gigs, NCPD missions, stores, apartments, and characters are open post prologue. The game doesn't hold your hand or give you a warning, everything is available. This can be helpful or a detriment depending on how you're trying to play the game.
As I originally stated, none of these system were actually broken. A truly BROKEN system means things do not work. They worked, and although not fully optimized, none of these system prevented the game from being played. That is what a broken system does and the people who portrayed that were doing it for attention and youtube views. To say those specific systems were truly broken would be a lie. The game had plenty of unfinished features or things totally cut out for sure. The combat loop, story, missions, and skill trees were pretty much intact at release.
