Mass Effect director says the next game won't feature any Veilguard-style aesthetic switchups: 'Mass Effect is photorealistic and will be as long as I'm running it'
Who cares about photorealism ? Artistic direction just has to be consistent to contribute to the world building. Other than that, I think many will agree with me that most important are: good writing (characters and story arcs), good gameplay, creative concepts.
Except the complaints about Veilguard are about the pixar-like characters with very little expressiveness. So even if that were what he meant he's still actually not addressing the real issues
Well, realistic graphics are costly and time consuming. If development time and budget is spent of photorealism, it's not being spent on game mechanics or additional stories.
I think it's weird they're so focused on the art style of the project, if it's well done the art style really doesn't matter that much.
The larger issues I've seen reported with the new Dragon Age are around the game design and writing, but BioWare haven't got a lot to say on that subject.
Lots of people just hate stylized graphics. I don't really understand the hate, as they tend to be more timeless than more realistic styles. Also it's a weird statement from someone representing a franchise with multiple stylized aliens.
Everyone does hate the art direction though, and that's a lot easier to address. Not that pointing to a different game that might not ever even exist when this one flops is a very good way to address it.
Have a recruitable Volus biotic warrior who you pick up in a nightclub and has romance dialog options.
They go hang out in some big room on the ship, like a cargo hold.
If you choose the romance options, more Volus just start showing up on your ship with no explanation. Like the next time you go in the cargo hold there's another one, then two more, then you start seeing them in the mess hall, engineering, medbay...
There's either dialogue options to ask what's going on (and kick them off the ship) OR there's more romance dialog options, but you can't do both!
If you keep choosing romance options, they eventually all show up in your room at the same time. It turns out that when Volus take a new partner, their whole extended polycule is allowed to vote on whether or not they approve of the new person being added to your dynamic. There's a whole scene where you and your new partner have to lobby, bargain and plead for them to include a human. Maybe whether they accept you or not has to do with other choices that you've made.