I don't know if there is an officially assessed sociological answer to this, so my personal perspective after playing around in the field for a decade or two...

They're cool.

That's it, really. Tanks in general are cool. And late-war German tanks were the biggest, meanest, coolest of the lot.

Everyone loves a winner, and everyone prefers to discuss things of some tangential relevance to their own country. For example, P-51 Mustang, very successful aircraft with the US, lot of people know it. P-39 Airacobra, very successful aircraft with the Soviets, but despite being American, many fewer people know it. German tanks were met by Americans and British both.

Thus the Germans and their Panzers were the first to effectively apply tank warfare in a manner which attracted attention in the West., so they got a headstart with the 'successful' category, even if the tanks themselves seemed to have been unimpressive.

Note, 'seemed'. They were designed to meet certain specifications which they met extremely well. Much as Soviet or American tanks were. But it's the later-war gear which gets the majority attention. The big cats, armored cars, etc. The Germans started for size over other considerations (A reverse of earlier policy), and the vehicles they created were, quite simply, impressive. With their big angular shapes, they look far more aggressive and modern than the round cast shapes of many Allied tanks.

Then you add to that their battlefield reputation. Whatever their limitations as war-winning machines, when they did show up at a fight, they tended to be the biggest, meanest, things there. To the point that it developed national scandals in the US and UK that the Germans were making better tanks than the Allies were. In the internal military documentation, the superiority came with significant caveats, but the press, and the soldiers staring down the barrels of the German guns, didn't much care about those caveats.

Finally, there were just so many of them. The Germans would put pretty much anything into the field as field tests (or as desperation). Only one or two vehicles of a type, yet they are often well known. The Allies had a more rational system, when they made a prototype, they never sent them to fight unless they were fairly sure it worked and were in mass production. The late-war US Army had Shermans and their derivatives, M18s and two types of light tank, one which replaced the other. Thus many of the prototypes are less well known, coming to the fore nowadays only as they are featured by mass media like computer games (World of Tanks, War Thunder).

The Germans, though, at the same time had Panzers IV, V, VI, VIB, and their derivatives, Jagdpanzers IV and 38(t), StuGs, repurposed vehicles like Marder, Hummel, captured vehicles and their derivatives, plus a few light tanks, so for wargamers or model makers, there is a massive selection to learn about and make/use. And, again, because of the way most wargame rules are made, the German tanks tend to be better than the allied ones in those games.

So, lots of big, cool-looking vehicles, with an reputation for excellence (Big asterisk), which perform well in games. What's not to like?