Nothing that has been shown of Zelda so far has been very exciting, in my opinion.
I'm a big Zelda fan and I've enjoyed almost every mainline entry in the series, but even I don't think they've shown anything particularly impressive myself (No items, no music, no dungeons, no level mechanics/puzzles, no bosses, etc.); this is mainly because I'm not a huge fan of running across large empty stretches of scenery, and I would rather see EAD refine/evolve the dungeon-like overworld from Skyward Sword.
Plus, open worlds are everywhere in the west and every AAA fantasy game does them, it's kind of hard for me to be impressed by that kind of experience nowadays.
There is also the (important) fact that ALBW's open world design structure severely dumbed down the interplay between Link's core mechanics, his items, and the environment (an element that is a huge part of Zelda's core interactive identity)
That kind of design rest somewhere near the "unacceptable" line for me...it's like making a Mario game with lackluster/mediocre platforming dynamics, you just don't do it.
Anyways...
I imagine the reasons for why "Zelda U" is getting so much hype is because the series is always incredibly well-received (
despite your own personal feeling towards the series), and a lot of games enthusiast have a strong emotional attachment to the franchise because of this; many of us can't wait to see what EAD3 has cooked up this time (not a lot of AAA developers create gameplay elements as brilliantly designed as the Lanayru Sand Sea and the timeshift stones), even I'm kind of excited despite my reservations and criticism.
There is also the very vocal pocket of enthusiast fans who worship Zelda 1 and see this game as the "return to the series' roots!™" that they've been hoping for since the 7th gen, so naturally you're gonna see a lot of hype coming from them on enthusiast-centric forums like this.
