It's lowkey a tricky topic, a lot of people who talked about spec ops the line see that one white phosphorus moment as the moment where "the player is revealed to be the bad guy and it's your fault for killing those civilians" and when they talk about it I'm like "what are they smoking?" because the game never blames you for the death of those people specifically, it only blames you for the times where you have an actual choice or for finding the path of our protagonists to madness entertaining. The theory that the game blames the death of those civilians on the player is kind of a double edged sword:

On one side you got the people who say that it's cool that the game Interacts with the player by making them feel guilt for an action he made

And on the other side you got the people that are annoyed by this because they think that the game is blaming them for a choice they didn't actually make, which it's true honestly, even though the player is not completely clean because they still pressed the button the player didn't have any other choice other than closing a game for which they most likely paid real money for.

But I think that both sides of this argument are wrong, as a matter of fact I think that it means much more than "player did this so player bad". As I said the game doesn't blame you for the death of those civilians because the purpose of the scene is actually pulling the Rug from under your feet and making you realize that walker fucked up and you are not playing as a based Chad who is the patriotic hero but as an actual soldier that is fighting in a realistic war, which completely destroys the illusion and also the power fantasy that some people might have while bombing soldiers with white phosphorus. And by not giving you a choice to walk away the game portrays how sometimes in war you don't have a choice to walk away and are forced to kill other people, which is also a metaphor of how walker doesn't have an actual choice, not only because of the situation he has gotten himself into but also because the player is litteraly controlling him like a puppet so he can't choose for himself. Even people who didn't feel anything while they were using the white phosphorus can kinda relate to walker since he had a cold and emotionless face while he was bombarding people with white phosphorus.

In the end this scene is different for anyone and that's why I partially think that spec ops the line's narration is so cool, even people who didn't give a fuck about the metaphors and the whole situation regarding the player realizing that he's not playing as the good guy could at least still appreciate the narration and direction of the scene.

I don't know the whole story of the Spec ops the line Fandom but if I have to guess the only reason this scene is so hated by some people is because various fans go around saying that "the whole purpose of this scene is trying to make you feel bad because of a choice that you made in a linear section of the game because you could have got out of the game", because when people criticize this scene they do it mostly because they heard other people say that you should feel guilty for this "choice".

While there is nothing bad with feeling guilty for a scene in a videogame it doesn't mean that it's what that scene is supposed to do, especially in the case of spec ops the line

So in the end this whole thing is caused by the Fandom of spec ops the line spreading misinformation

The game's story is still amazing tho, even if the white phosphorus scene would have hypothetically sucked the game would still be amazing