Blizzard has opened up about the impact Overwatch 2 "review bombers" have had on the team, acknowledging that the "dissatisfaction" stems from "the cancellation of the much larger component of PvE that was announced in 2019 [...] that Blizzard ultimately couldn't deliver".
In a statement posted to the game's official website, Aaron Keller said that while being review bombed "isn't a fun experience", the plan was to "move forward" by "adding to and improving Overwatch 2".
Yeah, and the PvE content that was supposed to justify the "2" being cancelled. The gameplay is fine, that's not why people are mad. It's the fact that you have to grind for months to earn heroes and the battlepass system is garbage.
To brush off the overwhelmingly negative reviews as "review bombing" is to imply that someone with an ulterior motive either faked the reviews or orchestrated a virtual army to write insincere ones, yet there is no reason to believe that happened here.
Perhaps the people in charge at Activision-Blizzard should stop pretending to be victims, and accept that those reviews are the genuine and predictable response to the choices they forced on their customers. Take responsibility, learn a lesson, either fix it or do better next time, and hope there's some good will left among what fans they haven't yet driven away.
Review bombers have completely fucked over the purpose of reviews, seriously. Thanks to those dumb fuckers anytime anything deservedly get bad reviews, the creators almost always completely fucking ignore the backlash, dismissing it as nothing more than review bombing. It's nothing more than an excuse, of course, but it's still an excuse they didn't have at all before.
There's a difference between the gameplay and the greedy, manipulative monetization.
The gameplay itself is solid and polished better than just about any multiplayer game out there - anyone who tries to argue otherwise is letting their (justified) anger toward Activision/Blizzard influence their judgement.
The monetization feels gross and disrespectful of the playerbase. It's like we have this well-made AAA quality game, but it's inside a vegas casino. Even if you enjoy it, you have to deal with this unsettling feeling of being scammed the whole time that you play.
While they've improved balance and removed the barrierwatch problem, I think the 5v5 has created some problems in casual play -- for one, teamfights seem too swingy now. Often a single death means the fight is basically over.
Second, I think the "1 OP tank" is problematic because it puts too much pressure on the tank player.
Team Fortress showed how competitive players want small 6v6 teams while casual players want big 12v12 teams. So dropping everybody down to 5v5 I think was bad for casual play.
Cheating is still common and demonstrable despite their anti-cheat rootkit, and their match making logic could use a material revision for casual eg Premade of 2 != Premade of 5
Unlocking is much faster after their launch season is over and they become achievement-based ulocks, where it's just "win 35 games in their role", which you'll hit pretty quick in QP.