Every single one of Bethesda’s fan favorite games are great games without mods.
Mods are little more than the whipped cream on top of what needs to be an already enticing sundae. Starfield was a perfect example of the fact that mods won’t save a game on their own, and that the days of the level of modability old Bethesda games had are now gone.
We can’t put all the blame on marketers. It is still to this day a wonky, janky, buggy and substandard RPG. There was no level of softening that would make Cyberpunk palatable enough to be entirely free of negative sentiment.