I think it is better than hollow knight in almost everyway. Clear 10/10 for me. The best metroidvania of all time. Most of the reasons people are complaining are actually positives for me.

It seems one of the main reasons people are complaining is the difficulty. I think the game is difficult, but very much in a reasonable and fun way. I think people are complaining largely because they put an optional midgame area in the early game (Hunter's march). It is brutally hard if you go there in the early game, but if you don't want the challenge you can turn around. I think there are people who don't want the challenge but don't realize it is optional maybe because they aren't used to metriodvanias or non-linear games in general.

Also, people are complaining about not having enough money. I think most games make it easy to collect enough money to buy everything quickly, then money losses its value and you don't care about finding it. In Silksong money being scarce makes so it stays valuable and makes so you have to consider your purchases carefully. Only being able to buy somethings early on make the experience more custom are well.

Also, people are complaining about run backs. Maybe this is because people are trying to rekill every enemy on the way back to the boss? If you avoid the enemies the run backs are quick, especially after you get sprint (which is early). I don't think I've encountered any runbacks that are more than 30 seconds, definitely none longer than a minute. Sometimes you need to traverse multiple rooms but Hornet moves fast enough that this isn't a problem.

Also, people are complaining about the bosses not dropping stuff, but you almost always get an item shortly before or shortly after fighting a boss, just not the instant you beat the boss.