No, not entirely.
Let’s be real, there are bad actors, political, anti-blizzard, but they are a minority.
The score as it is, is a result of the media snowball effect, every youtube video and article pointing out the IMDB and talking about the issues causes more outrage and people unrelated to the topic go to do their part in fighting against the evil activision blizzard overlords.
HOWEVER, there was a huge backlash already forming due to blizzard’s panel where they said they would dial back many changes due to the opinions of purists.
Basically, blizzard has two camps right now that are pissed at them.
The purists: IMO they are not worth trying to placate, for them, blizz should have left the old client intact and left it at that. They hate the art, the new models, they think everything about the old game was better and they hate that reforged is forced on them, and with a 30gb download.
Their concerns are legit, blizzard really should have left the old client alone.
Those who actually wanted the upgrade: For the rest of us, we were looking forward to blizzard doing a real update, not a half assed middle ground fence sitting remake that fails to please either side.
They didn’t redo the cutscenes, they’ve fixed few of the issues with AI, pathing, bugs, didn’t update the editor to the level they said, and overall half-assed the reforging in order to appease a vocal minority that may or may not just be a scapegoat for their own budget/time constraints.(Things that aren’t up to par are Cutscenes, Campaign, animations are bad, No new UI, etc.).
And at this point in time, blizzard is STILL advertising the game based on some of those promises, as well as showing the outdated better cutscene of the culling.
Blizzard also promised expanded storylines and details for important characters like Sylvanas, now, I didn’t want them to retcon anything, but adding a little more detail wouldn’t be too bad.(As long as they didn’t do any George Lucas level sh-t)
For me personally: I’m just disappointed in the awful animations/portraits, the lack of a contrast slider, the lack of the promised art tools and unit selection cap in the editor, and mildly disappointed with the lack of development done on the campaigns.
There’s then a third group, that has no issue with either of those things, and instead, just can’t play the f—ing game.
I’ve had the auto defeat bug about 10x since release, making me unable to complete the campaign, I’ve been unable to invite friends to a game and play customs, friends don’t show up, game is buggy, big lag spikes when building buildings, game crashes and disconnects more often than old client for me.
There’s a lot of legit criticism, the game for me is a 6/10, the 0.8 or so is a message to blizz. I appreciate blizzard’s work on the models, the variety and depth of the remodeled assets are a vast effort that I commend, but there is a lot more polish needed even on that front.(Animations in particular, some of the textures, some custom models still missing such as “Baine” and “Chaos Space Orc”.
