I like it, but I wouldn't say it particularly breaks away from the Lego formula in any meaningful sense.
It certainly has much higher production values and the pacing of the levels is a big improvement over the some of the longer drags that a few Lego games end up being, but it's not significantly different if you are not into the series.
I would say it's obviously second to Lego City Undercover, but still on the upper echelon of Lego games.
Level design is more expansive - multiple hubs bridging levels makes the game feel more cohesive and less fragmented. More love and care seems to have gone into it than some other recent entries - lot of attention to detail.
It also serves as the definitive Force Awakens game adaptation and does everything I wanted from that.
I definitely agree that the level design is a step up from the usual, and it helps the game a lot.
But it's worth pointing out that the usual Lego post-game content is weaker than usual here. There are a lot of side missions, but about half of them are just retreads of ship missions, or extremely short shooting segments with no additional context. Race missions have also lost all challenge since the time between checkpoints is hilariously long.
The hubs have the right size, though. I much prefer this approach to the bloated open world of the Marvel games. Everything is nicely packed in with plenty to do after finishing the story (including an extra 6 missions).
Just a shame that the extra content is so uneven. Some of those side missions are legitimately baffling.