I think Paris is a great city that I really enjoy visiting every time I go there, but you're perfectly right that it's incredibly overrated, anything with that reputation really must be, nothing that exists in reality could possibly come even close to such a myth.
Yeah Paris is great as a cool, old, European city with lots of history. If you like just hiking around cities it's great. I can imagine if you go into it thinking it is like some French tourist resort, you will be disappointed.
I'd always heard people talk about how dirty Paris is, but it was so clean when I visited last year. Admittedly my point of comparison is San Francisco, but still.
Screenshot of all the interesting places I have been or want to visit in France. Note the lack of dots in Paris. There are far, far nicer places to spend your time in France
While there is tons of nice place/stuff to do in Paris, many people see it as a perfect, romantic, ideal whatever city, and a visit there the trip of a lifetime.
Paris is a 10 million inhabitants urban area with all the associated problems,
Imagine thinking you're in the perfect city and being stuck in a crowded train, then in traffic, and falling in any possible tourist traps, from the barely legal but legal low quality, high price restaurant to the pickpocketsand other petty crime
It is a good comparison. There is a lot to see in both cities and they have good transit systems, but it can be really disorienting if you aren't used to city life and the grime of cities is harder to hide.
My wife thought it was wild how aggressive some street vendors are and how they set up tourist trinkets on blankets on the ground. We live very rurally haha
Paris has been romanticized a lot in media, to the point where the Japanese embassy has to have staff on hand to handle the dispair of Japanese tourists visiting and getting disappointed.
I remember Paris being a pleasant large Western city, but it is still a large Western city with all that it entails.
I also don't get the hype around Paris. It's not super ugly but also nothing special.
I don't live too far from it, could easily go there for a week-end or even day trip. Still only been there twice and have no plans to go there again. In many spots it's very crowded and dirty and the attractions aren't better than in any other major city.