I liked it a lot more than Asimov's, for what it's worth. It's one of my favorite stories so, yes, I would say it's a masterpiece. The plot is not simplistic and the characters do not appear wooden to me.
The Expanse I liked even better (at least until the last book or two), though it probably helped that I didn't have trouble remembering the names. My western bias shows in that I had a lot of trouble telling apart the chinese names even on the second "read" (audio book) of the 3BP trilogy, especially when they then add nicknames into the mix. Da Chu and Chu Cheng are the same person¹, but besides him and a few other main characters, I had to get who's who from context. (And, pardon, but calling people Ding, Dong, and Meow takes me out of the story the first few mentions.) Whether I'd still like The Expanse more if I didn't have this problem in 3BP... hmm, probably yes because there's this 'political correctness' stuff that isn't really my thing, but it would certainly be a close call.
¹ Now that I look it up on Wikipedia, it's apparently spelled Shi Qiang and Da Shi. (Original spelling is from memory, last time I listened to the books was about a year ago)
I'm Chinese but not fluent in mandarin and I struggle with Chinese names. I wouldn't feel too bad about it...
Mainstream "English" names (like James, Mark, Lily, Sarah etc) are essentially independent words whereas Chinese names are compositions of characters which are much more opaque to non-speakers. Not to mention that that romanisation is lossy see how `Wu` contains numerous different surnames[0]. (Aside, I only recently found out similarly for Vietnamese `Nguyen` can also include more than one surname)
Without the additional meaning they're just symbols and good luck differentiating between Zhang Chang Zang or Zu Zhu or Min and Ming etc
The Da (Big) / Xiao (Small) prefixes are direct translations of family honorifics that in the simple case directly indicate the relative age of one family member to another. The more common use for family is with more layers of indirection -- so when referring to my mother's younger sister, I would say "Xiao Ai" (Little Aunt), and when referring to my mother's older sister, it would be "Da Ai" (Big Aunt).
In this case I imagine it was more in a professional context, so "Shi Qiang" -- family name "Shi", given name "Qiang" -- was likely elder or the superior of people around them, so would be called "Da Shi" (Big Shi / Boss Shi). If Shi Qiang were the younger, they'd likely be called "Xiao Shi" (Little Shi / Subordinate Shi).
I think there's enough great literature out there you don't have to feel bad for not being able to enjoy a particular piece, even if it's for unusual reasons. As an example, there's a novel with a good reputation and fascinating plot summary I found unreadable because one of its quirks is that the protagonist doesn't have gender so the pronoun use in the narration is effectively random. Trying to read that was like turning my ADHD up to 11 and I had to give it up.
Liu Cixin is a bad author, in all regards. Still, the Asimov comparison holds water in that Asimov never could write a character anyone cares about either. He does seem to be more self-aware of it than Cixin is though. Cixin actually tries to write personalities, whereas Asimov bypasses them. Clarke bypasses them. Very unfortunately, late Stephenson largely falls into the same pattern, despite standing quite a bit above the rest. Though Stephenson obviously built on the foundation (hue) Asimov and Clarke established, so it's not fully fair to compare them.
In short, these books are bad. Cixin is closer to NK Jemisin than other Nebula Award winners.
Could just be me, but I only remember the full context of the cannibal leader char in Seveneves. I could tell you some abstraction of "There was that programmer woman from the miner magnate family and there was that one guy that was hanging out with the eves", but it's all pretty blurry. I don't remember anyone from Anathem. My main issue is that I can't even tell you who the main character of Seveneves was, if there was one. I remember that there was one in Anathem, but could I tell you anything about him? Nope, just good sci fi. I remember everyone from Snow Crash, and I definitely remember the main char from Diamond Age, her dad, the guy he robbed, etc.
Seveneves? Great scenario and ideas, but I couldn't care less about any of the characters, and I probably don't remember any.
Still enjoyed the read a lot though.
The Expanse I liked even better (at least until the last book or two), though it probably helped that I didn't have trouble remembering the names. My western bias shows in that I had a lot of trouble telling apart the chinese names even on the second "read" (audio book) of the 3BP trilogy, especially when they then add nicknames into the mix. Da Chu and Chu Cheng are the same person¹, but besides him and a few other main characters, I had to get who's who from context. (And, pardon, but calling people Ding, Dong, and Meow takes me out of the story the first few mentions.) Whether I'd still like The Expanse more if I didn't have this problem in 3BP... hmm, probably yes because there's this 'political correctness' stuff that isn't really my thing, but it would certainly be a close call.
¹ Now that I look it up on Wikipedia, it's apparently spelled Shi Qiang and Da Shi. (Original spelling is from memory, last time I listened to the books was about a year ago)