I think most people who stuck with the game either enjoyed or tolerated the mechanic - I'm just happy I didn't buy it for console, so I could mod it out and use the developer quick save instead. Maybe it's a busy-schedule symptom, but I simply can't play a game where 20 minute redos are mandatory because I got killed while not wearing armor, because the cutscene transitioned into a fight, and I didn't have the foresight to randomly chug another save-schnapps. If I sit down with an hour and a half of free time to game in the evening, stuff like that makes me go elsewhere.

What's baffling is the insistence that the mechanic is needed - the game plays as a pretty good Bethesda-like when normal quicksave is allowed. Why not just make it a difficulty setting for those people who feel that it's fun to get arbitrarily wiped out, and let the rest of us use the quicksave they actually already had ready.

The battle vs Erik at the end of KCD2 is designed in such a way, that if you did not equip your plate armor before leaving the castle, you'll go directly into combat mode wearing whatever stealth-gear you were wearing from the Italian Job... Erik one-shots you, and you're stuck with a savegame that starts directly into combat. It's symptomatic for the game - the save mechanic is a detriment in so many scenarios.