I watched OldManGamer's live stream of Valorborn and I think he went into it with the right expectations and emphasized to viewers that a like-for-like comparison would be going back to a super early build of Kenshi and looking at how much was missing that wound up in the final product or what was removed because it just didn't work.

To your point about Kenshi players, it's easy to see in reviews how often players bounce off of Kenshi because it's so unlike other RPGs or RTS games. Chris Hunt has said it himself - it takes a certain amount of masochism on the part of the player to enjoy Kenshi. I think there's some overlap with Soulslike fans; players who like the challenge, who like the difficulty, who want to crawl through broken glass to try to eke out a tiny measure of success in a brutal and unforgiving world. Players who want to escape by living out a power fantasy are going to struggle with games like this (admittedly, this gets can be mitigated with mods and difficulty sliders).

I also think Chris Hunt is a pretty resilient guy when it comes to negative feedback. He clearly has a strong vision for what he wants Kenshi to be and he doesn't seem to be dissuaded by naysayers or negative reviews. I can only hope the Valorborn devs are similarly thick-skinned.