When you have an island made up of all the dark people of the world speaking in a dozen different accents, I just don't know how anyone could see it as anything but intentional. Toss in the World's Zoo approach to wildlife (that you kill and commodify), the war memorabilia, the "tribal" silliness, and the raising of flags everywhere, and, well, I thought it was pretty clear what was going on. And, yes, this stuff is familiar because it's in a thousand other games. That familiarity is part of the "joke." It was the exaggeration of it all that makes it clear that it was intentional. I thought it was pretty obvious. But I guess that's just me.
It's kind of frightening to me that more people didn't get what was funny about the game's overt racism. So many of us are so inured to racism and colonial tropes in games that the "jokes" just went right past some of us. Scary. It's not "ha ha" funny. More of the "Hmph, so true" kind of funny.
I didn't think the story was deliberately "bad." Just silly and absurd. Like a slasher movie. It's a game story built on emphasizing and exaggerating conventions. I keep drawing comparisons to Scream and Cabin in the Woods because I think that's the kind of game it is. The writer made a good point about how some games can successfully do satire or critique, but they satirize things other than games (like GTA satirizing American culture, gangster movies, etc.). But it's rare for games to critique gaming conventions. Most games that reference gaming conventions are either just of the wink-and-nod variety with no underlying point (like No More Heroes or Vanquish), or they're nostalgia pieces with a million references to early games (like Scott Pilgrim or Retro City Rampage).