Skillup did a masterful job of eviscerating the game just sticking to the bare facts that most people are going to care about. His points get taken seriously because he hit on things that, assuming they're true, are far more dire for the gaming audience and, if they're amplified, will kill the hype for the game in its crib (same for the PC Gamer non-review, a really brutal takedown that just focused on what it lacks as a game).
The point about enemies having bloated health bars that require you to fire off the same few abilities ad nauseum. That just doesn't sound fun to people - and if that's what they hear a lot of complaints over, they'll hesitate (I'm actually curious if "drop it to easy!" becomes the new "leave the Hinterlands!" or if Bioware rushes out a patch to address an issue only Skillup seems to have noticed).
Then there's the crowd that likes to role play. If it turns out that you're railroaded into being a good guy, and your role playing options are minimal, that your companion interactions are similarly guardrailed, and everyone hears about it, well, that's another crowd turned off.
The art style is proving to be another turnoff to a large group of people who aren't on board with its cartoony vibe. Apparently even the dead bodies have perfect skin. The cartoon vibe and the cartoon difficulty and the cartooning of the world isn't shaping up for a good look.
We're reading tea leaves a bit now, but it seems to me that the real Sword of Damocles hanging over this title is if that it's fundamentally shallow. It's long, sure, but the impression I'm getting is that it's the edges-sanded-off, kiddie-friendly, YA edition of Dragon Age. There was a line in the PC Gamer article that jumped out at me, about how the entire conflict between mages and templars - one of the few things that was ever interesting in the series - has been sanded away.
My fundamental point is that I deeply want this game to fail, and pinning your main criticism on "woke" (which of course it is, duh) isn't converting anyone that isn't already on the team. But if I wanted to drive a stake through its heart, which I badly, badly want to do, I'd ensure it got a reputation as being shallow, juvenile, and most importantly, boring.
People like Dragon Age. People aren't going to like "your tween brother's Dragon Age."
You want to infuriate Biodrones? Yeah, so do I. Call them woke, call them cucks, call them fags - they don't care. But if, say, "I liked Dragon Age back when it was an RPG" starts making the rounds, that will activate their rage centers because it cuts to the heart of what's really wrong here.
Same reason Saint's Row reboot failed. It got a reputation for cringe dialog, boring art and mission design, and once that stuck there was no way it could recover. It was clearly trying to pander to a younger audience, which is exactly the sense I get from Veilguard, and ultimately the game sank and dragged the whole studio down with it.
Would that history would repeat itself.