Come on man! Honestly, this is such ridiculous comment.
First of all: if it's overhyped, it's overhyped by undergrads who had to muddle through survey courses reading Chaucer and all gather together around the claim that The Canterbury Tales "just aren't appropriate anymore" and have "no applicability." More often than not, these criticisms are made by lazy academics who wish they didn't have to suffer through actual verse.
Second: it's far from overhyped among faculty in English departments, considering you're likely to only find one Medievalist in English departments today (if at all), and many of them are retiring. Chaucer is receding into the historical dustbin, for better or worse.
Third: if you even slightly hope to grasp the history of the English language and literature, I don't see how you can be so dismissive. It's the most famous and important work of Middle English, which allows us to trace etmylogical and philological influences through texts such as Beowulf or The Dream of the Rood into texts by Chaucer, Langland, and Gower, and on to see how the language evolves into modern English (which is actually Shakespeare, despite what some people say). Furthermore, it chronicles English literary development in the Middle Ages, and offers a window into the social expectations and classifications of the period. And...
Fourth (and last): it is one of the most important works in the English vernacular that actually influenced a wider range of texts also written in English. Vernacular writing was slow to take root in history; each culture needs its catalyst. The Italians had Dante. The French had Chrétien de Troyes. The English had Chaucer. I don't think you can overhype that.
