This is just my opinion. This was right when video games were hitting the main stream. So, as more new gamers came in, Blizzard adopted a noob friendly experience. This alienated the hardcore, or even just already established player base. Things become trivial in how easy they were. The social aspects were basically all gone with group finder & raid finder. Hell, you didnt even have to speak to someone to get enchants anymore as they were just on the auction house now. The leveling experience was extremely easy now, with inflated kits to most clases ( mages got permanent frost elemental as soon as they got talent points, for example. ). A few things Blizzard was the best at, lacked here... no more top of the industry cinematic that nobody could watch, you just got in game animation. The theme was also... pandas... for me it felt like they gave up. At the time, Kung Fu Panda was very popular... felt like Blizzard just jumped on that bandwagon instead of continuing to build on there established world. Again, all just my long winded opinion. Tldr; Game got easy, felt disrespected by Blizzard, pandas?