The same people who watch classic meme clips from Cuphead and Doom and yell “LOL game urinalists amirite?!l” are now demonstrating their own special brand of incompetence by failing to understand the relatively simple gameplay concepts put forth by DS. The game gives you all the tools you need to get to your destination in one piece but a lot of people are completely disregarding them and instead trying to mindlessly brute force their way through everything.
I see these clips of people complaining about the game and there are a lot of glaring commonalities. So many players are always completely over-encumbered for no reason, taking the most impractical route imaginable while utilizing exactly zero of the equipment strapped to their back. They keep trying to scale mount everest bare-handed with 300kg of deadweight before spreading their arms like a professional soccer player and screaming “Why game no work!” and its just embarrassing to watch.
Its hard to make the point without getting into the usual git gud elitist territory. Obviously nobody is obligated to like the game. The core gameplay loop is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and there are plenty of legitimate criticisms to be made regarding boss design and awkward writing, but if you’re legitimately finding the traversal mechanics to be somehow dysfunctional theres a pretty good chance that you’re just playing the game like a god damn retard.
This is generally how I feel too.
I totally understand why people are not enamored by Kojima. He talks a load of old bollocks sometimes and he does have a fawning fanbase that can indeed be annoying.
Buuuuuuuut! Having played the game, and looking forward to taking my time playing through it until the end, I would have to say that some of the criticisms are coming from not really understanding the game. I am not saying they are too dumb to "get" the game or that the game is some high IQ masterpiece that only geniuses can understand. I am saying that they have approached the game with an attitude of "OK entertain me" and putting in minimal effort to actually get to know the game and it's mechanics etc.
This is combined with a weird vitriol that us usually only reserved for broken or micro-transaction laden games. People seem to just hate on the game because there is a big Kojima fanbase out there. They've convinced themselves that since they don't like the game the only way you could possibly like it is to be delusional or something.
When this game was released how many posters on here were low post count newcomers, or people who hadn't posted anything at all for ages, who showed up just to slam on the game? "The game is boring garbage but Kojima fanboys love it anyway". Etc etc.
One of the things I have always said regarding criticism of this game is that A LOT of people have a very clear and specific view of what they think a videogame should be and when something comes along that is not that thing they are not able to accept it on it's own terms.
If you can make the argument that Kojima has blind fans who will praise anything then I think you can also make the argument that there are plenty of people who were never willing to give the game a fair shake.
That's before you even get to people who think they can somehow rationally and logically "prove" that the game is bad. So when someone says "wow the game world just looks amazing" you always have some dipshit showing up to say "haha it's just rocks mountains and sky what's so amazing about that".
I think mostly though it's just disagreement on what kind of experience a videogame should provide. I think if you are willing to sit down and learn the mechanics and then actively engage with the game then it's a better experience than if you want to just grab the controller and follow the waypoints and get right into the game right away and just be thrown right into action with loads of things going on and loads of options.
Like how a major complaint about BotW's weapon durability system or the fact that you can't climb during rain was that "it get's in the way of me just playing the game" but the intent of the developers was that it would stop you from just playing the game one particular way.
Death Stranding felt more like "listen you are going to be here for 50 hours so lets ease you into the game and let you take your time". This is not the same as a lot of other games. Definitely not like most AAA experiences.
Sometimes it feels like the thought process for some of these reviews and criticisms is "here is what I wanted the game to be and here is what the game actually is" and the score reflects the difference between those two points. So if you went into Death Stranding looking for really intense combat where you'd be raiding outposts and shooting up the place or sneaking through the place then it's a "boring" game because it's not the game you wanted.
The fact that it's Kojima doesn't help because I feel like there is a friction there where Kojima is actually quite outspoken regarding his games and his opinions on gaming and a lot of these Youtube personalities are equally outspoken. So disagreement looks like this situation where they totally slam the game and slam Kojima for daring to think differently.
I think a lot of people did not give the game a fair chance and instead opted to make it more of a performance about how much they think the game sucks.