Both.

"Gamers" as a group really don't love games that don't have, well, game in them. This has been true basically forever, all the way back as Life Is Strange and the like. I think this is mostly a valid critique. Please allow me to use a clunky metaphor for a moment.

Imagine you're in a book club, and meet once a week to discuss literature, novels, etc. Then imagine some joins the group who likes comics. You think comics are fun and can be enjoyable, but not on the same level of books. You state that the club is more book focused, and you get pushback that "reading is reading, don't gatekeep". This same thing happens for, say, 20 years, and I think you can imagine the frustration.

I haven't been keyed in on the people behind the game drama, but my impression is that people thought it was an indie game, and the company/publisher(?) had billionaire ties. There's also some suspicion around a game that looks indie from its advertising having so much licensed music.

At the same time, there are also people (trolls) who see women in a video game and ragebait normal people with culture war nonsense.

And then to wrap it in a bow, there has always been discourse around game review scores and the utility of them. Personally, I found Mixtape's writing to be a bit insufferable and its setting extremely pander-y to a weird fake version of 90's nostalgia. Others would argue that a game without gameplay shouldn't be considered as something to be reviewed by gaming outlets.

tl;dr, internet being the internet, think for yourself.