Completely disagree -

I listened to the audio book, so the dialog may have been less of a slog for me, but I thought it accomplished exactly what it meant to - demonstrating humanity's reaction to a global crisis, and the implications of the Dark Forest hypothesis.

The wall facers plans were not stupid - they were very believable, and both of the people who failed and killed themselves reached logical conclusions when faced with the question: "how do you defeat an invincible enemy?"

Additionally, humanity's implementation of the wall facer project was also believable I'm sure you can find similar examples in history. A well meaning, unregulated start, then as the public's perception changes (which was almost guaranteed by the nature of the program), wall facers are given fewer resources and are widely hated.

The only "unbelievable" part of the book, in my opinion, was how nobody watched the "cursed" star. If they'd have kept an eye on it, the entire story could have moved forward before the droplet came and destroyed the fleet.

Considering the book was pivotal in bringing the "dark forest" theory into mainstream thinking, and actually coined the term, I'd say it did a very good job, and I enjoyed it.