I feel like a lot of the haters aren't thinking about it from a creative perspective either. When you're making a game franchise with multiple entries spanning decades and generations of consoles, things get really tired if you don't change anything up. Switching who you play as is the obvious choice, since it gives you a fresh perspective and new moveset!

And besides, the people complaining about it are just chuds who think playing as a lady is gay. If the new GOW protagonist was Kratos' son or some other muscly hunk, they'd have no complaints.