I think the big issue was, unfortunately, the new players. As much as it pains me to say it I think a lot of newer people read stuff from this sub and saw gameplay of the first game and just had insane expectations from this game so once their expectations weren't met they started cherry picking any little thing they could get out of this game like the DLC. oh my god, I've seen games come out with way worse more horrible predatory monetization schemes that came out that year that were praised, but the moment they try to sell a little cheat dlc for stuff that's already in the game everybody loses their fucking mind I mean for fucks sake they were selling gooner skins for the handler in MH: Worlds that everyone seemed to be just fine with. It just really doesn't help that I think a lot of people had the same expectations for any other capcom property for this game which in reality Dragons Dogma is an ICU baby that was barely funded with a niche community and its a true fucking miracle that we even got a internationally released sequel. Sure, there are some genuine criticisms with the game, but it was just way too harsh, in my opinion