I know its not just the visuals. I get that. I outlined that. Marketing was shaky on the rocks too.The Pre order stuff looks pretty balls. But the game is out now. The game is good, too, inspite of people wishing and meming it otherwise.
And yet... In spite of this people seem really really eager to try and put this game 6 feet under by week one, yourself included (no offense).
THATS whats fucking me up. When good gameplay doesnt make it a good game, what is a game even? MVCI seems to hit a majority of stuff on my game check list of quality (minus of course, the visuals and music), and yet the visual and roster, purely aesthetic things are whats killing the game. THings that many people in the past over look in various other titles, whether it being shitty music, shitty stories, shitty outside the game stuff or shitty music.
this is gonna be a bit of a long response, but know that I don't mean any ill-will towards you with any of this.
The thing is, presentation matters. The game is flat out not worth its price tag. I value supporting a game at the competitive and community level as much as anyone, but if the game itself doesn't deserve to succeed...maybe it shouldn't.
The PR was a mess as you all know, the game's visuals are inconsistent where some are good looking like Jedah and Gamora but ppl like Frank and Dante are butt ugly. The game lacks any real features aside from story, missions (which don't matter since they aren't updated to match the patched version of the game so why bother?), arcade, and versus.
The issue here is what you want. When I put down $60-$90, I want a full fledged game. This game doesnt come to meet those expectations for a variety of reasons and I'd drag this post out a ton more if I went into all of it, but to get on track, its not fair to expect ppl to NOT bash the game when it doesnt meet quality expectations.
On your point about Melee, again, different expectations. Melee came out ages and for the time it was out, it looked really good visually. Plus it has a ton of modes, lots of unlockables, and a lot of really rewarding systems outside of the well done gameplay. The game also wouldn't be $60 to pick up today assuming you already had a Gamecube. As time goes on expectations evolve. If you want to be a game designer this should be a good lesson that how much you charge for a game should at least try to match the game's quality. A lot of indies get away with having less because they cost less, and it can be debated that their presentation is even better than MvCi here in some cases due to stylized graphics and menus.
To end this, basically, a fighter can have great gameplay, but that doesn't really matter if the game itself doesn't treat its fanbase with respect or have much to attract the casual audience. If it fails to meet the standards of most people, then it doesn't matter how good the gameplay is. Maybe it'll be revived when the game becomes really cheap, but as it is the game isn't worth its price tag.