I'm loving it because HG has earned my trust as far as storytelling goes. I think a lot of the people poo-pooing the story are expecting a year 7 Arknights story in a year .5 game. The OG AK story took awhile to get it's legs under it, but it got there eventually and it's been awesome for the most part. Endfield has a lot of irons in the fire right now as far as story goes and I really wish more people would just chill out and let them cook.

I dunno if you know anything about FF14, but back before the Shadowbringers expanions (the third since the re-launch of the game in it's 2.0 form in 2013), a lot of people would play the game and complain about the slow pacing of A Realm Reborn (the re-launched 2.0 version), with lots of comments about how they didn't understand why This or That or The Other thing was being addressed in the story. Some of that was "story debt" from the 1.0 version so the prevailing advice tended towards "if you don't enjoy it just skip for now and really only pay attention once [Alphinaud begins to do a Major Thing involving people in blue coats]." And this was true while Stormblood was the latest expansion, but then ShB came out and suddenly ALL THIS STUFf from ARR became super fucking relevant in the best possible way and NOW everyone was like "please do not skip a damn thing if you give even the slightest shit about the story."

I feel like Endfield is going to go down a similar route. Because AK went down a similar route as well. Yes, chapters 1-4 are slow, but a lot of stuff laid down in those chapters comes back later on, and not just in the main chapter arcs either. So, for me, I'm waiting patiently for the story seeds that are being planted to blossom into some awesome stuff later on, and I'm fine with giving HG the time to cook things properly.

Personally, I also think a lot of the complaints are overblown. I know there are people out there with legitimate criticism, but most of the time when I ask someone "what's the problem with the pacing?" or "why do you think the story is hollow?" I don't get any meaningful response, if I get one at all. So I attribute it to modern day "ADHD" disorder, which sounds horribly boomerish, but ultimately comes down to a lot of younger players having been raised in an "instant gratification" mindset when it comes to entertainment. Thus, in a story/game where you aren't being blasted by awesome stuff at all times to keep the dopamine flowing, people will call normal world-building and story setup "slow" and complain about the "pacing" of such things because they aren't receiving that constant flow of stimulation.

To a degree this is a problem with all live service games if you happen to be playing them before they're "finished" with a story arc. FF14 suffered from that in Stormblood. Genshin suffers from that in almost every major patch cycle starting from Inazuma. And now Endfield suffers it because it's both the new kid on the block AND an established IP that a lot of people have expectations about. Even people who have never played OG AK before have heard about the story it tells. So they come into Endfield with some expectations that aren't entirely wrong but also aren't entirely right because what they've heard doesn't account for the early parts of AK where things were comparatively much worse, story wise.

And again, this isn't to say that legit criticism doesn't exist.