To be clear I was only addressing just that issue, I certainly wasn't saying Shadowkeep was without fault or that there aren't plenty of valid points as to why people may not like it.
I do feel like based on some of your points that you had unrealistic expectations of Shadowkeep. The fact you mention Eververse still existing as a negative despite the fact the game just went free to play is a red flag to me, as if they were going to remove it. And what missions were re-used? If you're referring to the new intro mission for new players that's a terrible example as it makes sense to use it for players entirely new to the franchise, and it's literally only used for new characters.
There are entire sections of the game that are directly taken from Destiny 1. For example as part of the main questline you have to go back through the wrecked Ketch of Skolas and kill him....again. And they changed literally NOTHING about the encounter or the level itself. Its the exact same mission we had in Destiny 1. And all of this is taking place on the moon and aside from some cosmetic changes a sizable portion of the map is exactly the as it was in Destiny 1. And thats not including the fact we have no new enemy types. Its the same enemies we have been killing for years with name changes. Lets do some comparisons between Shadowkeep and Forsaken real quick.
Forsaken
- Brand new class of enemies in the Scorn that had unique models and behaviors
- Quite a few new characters added to the cast as well as other characters being fleshed out. (The Queen, Spider, Petra, Cayde, etc etc)
- Brand new area to visit in the form of the Forgotten Shore
- Brand new area to visit in the form of the Dreaming City
- A wide variety of new armor sets
- A wide variety of new weapons
- New abilities for ALL classes
- A well thought out and well written storyline
- A storyline which btw played out right before our eyes with quite a few really well done cutscenes after almost every major mission
- The storyline actually took a good amount of time to complete
Meanwhile in Shadowkeep we have:
- No new enemies at all. Just the same enemies we have always had with just different skins and names.
- No new areas aside from the few new parts of the moon we got
- Reused missions from previous games
- No new class abilities
- No new cast of characters
- Very few new armor sets compared to Forsaken.
- Very few new weapons compared to Forsaken.
- Less story than Forsaken
- Takes less time to complete than Forsaken
- Minimal cutscenes as well. In fact the majority of the time after you complete a mission all you get is some dialogue from Eris when you go and talk to her.
So all in all we got alot LESS this time around than we did for Forsaken and yet Bungie hyped it up as being a whole new direction for the series. That finally they could do what they want now that the chains of Activision had been broken!!!!!............and all we got was less than what we got before and what we did get was alot of reused areas and missions. And all of this for basically the same price as Forsaken. So yeah. Shadowkeep deserves every bit of criticism that its getting from players and the media.
As for Eververse and Destiny going "free to play"? Last time I checked I still had to pay $35 for access to the latest content so no they are not "free to play" in my opinion. Warframe is free to play. You get access to all new content for literally nothing. You can start the game and play all the way to the most current content without ever spending a dime.
THAT is free to play. Giving access to 70% of the game, but not the 30% that everyone else is currently playing is NOT free to play. And then to have predatory micro-transactions in the form of lootboxes and premium currencies on top of that? Yeah no thanks. Eververse is literally the worst thing that ever happened to Destiny in my opinion. And as long as its in the game while Bungie insists on charging a premium for minimal content like its done for Shadowkeep I will always list it as a glaring negative for the game.
I loved Forsaken, but Shadowkeep is an embarrassing step backwards for the series. If you want to release a smaller expansion with less content than the previous one then thats fine. But you cannot charge a similar price and pretend that they are similar in scope like Bungie did leading up to its release.