Though Highgiard probably deserves to be a failure, I have noticed these snap judgments too, and don’t often enjoy them.

I even see them the other way. A crowd knows a game for its notoriety, and they worship the amazing payoff at 30 hours. But, in the face of that positivity, no one is making good observations about how 15 of those hours were useless padding and the game’s main mechanics are severely flawed.

That’s not an observation that should retroactively pull down the score of a game that left impacts on people though. Analyzing flaws can help us work out how to improve sequels, or even patch games to help people dive further into them.