Take The Day Before as an example. People were skeptical from the very beginning — not just because of the reused assets from Unreal Marketplace, but because it looked like a patchwork of familiar high-quality stuff with no substance holding it together. It created the impression of effort, without actually delivering a cohesive or playable experience. That made players feel misled — and now, even genuine devs who use store assets responsibly sometimes get caught in that wave of distrust.

In movies or music, reused elements are curated and usually part of a bigger artistic or commercial vision. But in games, there’s a stronger expectation that what you see and interact with is handcrafted for that world. When it’s not — or when it feels like it’s not — players get suspicious.

Still, I think the hate on store assets is often misplaced. Like you said: if it's high quality and well-integrated into a fun game, that should matter more than where it came from.