There are many ways to figure out which projects are good and which projects are great.
For me personally, I will ask myself these questions first.
1) Will I use this product?
2) Am I interested to learn more?
3) Will it help bring Crypto or Blockchain to non-crypto investors/users?
Then, of course, we shall proceed with reading the actual whitepaper.
I will look out first:
1) The team
The experience of the team matters quite a lot. And where their true strengths lie. Just an example, Justin Sun is a fantastic marketing wizard and thus, he is able to secure these partnerships and create the hype for TRX. Vitalik Buterin is a technical wizard, with a figurehead like him, Ethereum has a strong technical advantage. That sort of things. Steve Jobs and Apple. Elon Musk and Tesla/SpaceX. Jack Ma and Alibaba. (Not advocating these companies. They are just examples).
2) If available, business model.
How will the project bring revenue and profits? During a bear market when ICO contributions like BTC and ETH lose value, how can a company sustain in the market? Revenue makes a company tick.
Hope this helps somehow! It is a long topic for sure.