Have you played much of the rest of the series? DA:V is a perfectly adequate game with incredibly lukewarm themes in a series of pretty good games with dark and interesting themes. I think a lot of people, myself included, were hoping that after the success of Baldur's Gate 3, EA would turn to the studio that made Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and say "I want that, make me a game like that." Instead, we got a serviceable fantasy RPG. Fine if you really like that kinda thing, but I've only so much time for those games, and it's much better spent on Avowed and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2

Skill Up’s review perfectly summarised all the criticisms. One of the most damning indictments was the feeling that HR was always in the room. He brings receipts for all his complaints. Some of the most unbelievably stupid, juvenile, and ham-fisted writing I’ve ever seen in any video game. This would be a failure if it came from any other studio, but to see BioWare fall this far is really difficult to see.

Bad RPG elements: there's a lot of dialogue choices that's is "Yes" but worded differently, kills off-screen previous relevant characters of the franchise, butcher some characters(Morrigan), disregard previous choices of the older games(the main selling point of DA for a lot of people), change tone, art direction and combat mechanics(is more action oriented instead of tactical). Basically a lot of DA players doesn't like the changes.

I think Baldur’s Gate 3 raised the bar for storytelling in RPG games. The previous Dragon Age games also had fantastic world building and storytelling. Vanguard fell a bit short and suffers from “Marvel Dialogue” where they undercut every emotional moment with a quip.

Mediocre combat, shits on old lore and polarizing characters. There's the culture war bs but it really isn't the main factor on how it is performing.

I didn't think it was bad, I honestly enjoyed it. I think people are too polarized, it's either baulders gate or it's trash. I disagree. It wasn't top tier, but that doesn't mean it was bad either. It's okay to have a mid game.

The art direction and the combat mechanics. But I can’t be sure.

This is demonstrably not true. Definitely people cheering for Ubi's layoffs recently. Not about the execs, about the devs.

As the other guy says, literally two posts down the line.

The other comment contradicts your assumption

Yeah, he agrees.

You don't have to like a game, and you don't have stay quiet if you have complaints, says Darrah. You're entitled to be angry, and you're entitled to express that anger. "If you are mad at that Ubisoft game, be mad at Ubisoft," he says. "Express your anger to Ubisoft or the studio that made the game. But you cross a line when you start being cruel about it."

Reading. It works.

I bet you suck at darts.

It never effects executives or managers though. The whole problem with the current Western games industry is that the idiots who keep thinking up games nobody wants to play are the only ones who don't get fired when their idea flops.