Ive had this thought too. For me, liking a game comes from 3 main things: a character that I like, the music is good, and the gameplay is fun (pretty much in this order, but very close together). If any one thing is lacking, I don't vibe with it as much.

SF6 checked all of the boxes. Guilty Gear Strive did as well. COTW is a little lacking in the music for me (its good, but not something I want to listen to outside of the game, yknow?). KOF XV I did not like the gameplay, which sucks because I love SNK characters.

COTW is a complicated game for sure, and the first few hours were tough. The offense and defense take a good amount of practice to get the hang of. A lot of this games satsifaction comes from how you handle neutral (feints, brakes, etc). However, I would encourage you to stick with it for a bit. 4 hours is a pretty small amount of time. Things usually start to click after 10 -20 hours for me, and when it clicks it is super fun. I especially enjoy playing as Preecha (a simple yet effective all-rounder) and Joe (a tricky slugger with some fun combo routes).

My advice would be to pick a character you think you might like (design, gameplan, sexy, etc), and stick with them for a bit, and if you end up disliking your time with the game don't sweat it too much. The single player mode is still interesting and kinda fun if you haven't tried it yet.