I'd need any game I play to be more, "enjoyable," and not so much, "an addictive habit."
At what point is an action enjoyable and at what point is it an addictive habit?
Opening treasure chests in any JRPG, for example, is fairly similar to stopping at a Pokestop. It felt the same in Chrono Trigger to go to the end of time, get a chest, go back a period, get the same chest, etc, as it does hitting up the same pokestops on my well traveled route. How much of fighting in any JRPG is fun and how much of it is habit? I love playing Chrono Trigger, but half of the battles I'm mindlessly spamming normal attacks until it's dead or I need to heal up. Compare them to catching Pokemon, which is mindlessly throwing Pokeballs until a strong Pokemon shows and you have to switch to more efficient items (Razz Berry+Ultra/Great ball). Rewards are money, items, XP. XP makes you stronger in both, so does money buy buying powerful upgrades, and items help you live longer or get further in the game. Basically, the act of twirling a ball and throwing it into a hoop may not be super fun by itself, but how fun is selecting an option on a menu? Swiping a stop may not be fun, but how fun is hitting x on a box?
Yeah, there's story in CT, and places to go. There's sights to see and people to talk to, all things that compound and add to the game. However, I would argue that all of the same are in PMGO. I have a story with Sharpie of the "adventure" we've been on, and we have cities with useful items and rewards. We have people we've talked to directly related to the game, and we have things we've seen that could have only been seen with this game.
The game itself is lacking because of the servers and bugs and missing features, but I don't think that the concept of the game is really all that terrible, especially once it's looked at along with the social experience. It can be better, a lot better, so I'm sticking with it to see where it goes.
I do respect and acknowledge other opinions, I just want to get mine out there.