At the moment I'm playing through Batman TTG and I had to pause the game and think about the last few series I played of theirs, how lazy they were and yet still with a half assed job in most departments, the games have gotten decent reviews from journalists, essentially getting a free pass every time 

1) the graphics are average

2) the animals are lazy

3) the gameplay is mostly qte's but without the consequences of depth like in games like Until Dawn and heavy rain

4) and with as little to it  the games are really badly optimised. They stutter and skio throughout and at times even crash.

How is it TTG have gotten away with this whilst other devs have not?! 

I actually can't stand TTG's stuff, they are basically coasting on the popularity still of the original Walking Dead series imo, have done nothing to advance what they produce since then, it's shameful but they have their customers and keep selling them the same broken QTEs with story "twists".

Also regarding your second point, I agree!

For the longest time, I felt like everyone was praising TTG to the high heavens, but I'd never been interested in trying out any of their games. I kept hearing the writing was great and the interactivity really made you feel a part of the story.

Once the first Batman game came out, I figured I'd give it a shot since I enjoy the source material, and holy crap it was one of the worst written pieces of garbage I've ever had the misfortune of spending my time on. Add to that the gameplay was basically nonexistant (which I'd been prepared for, but still), the interactivity didn't seem to actually change anything, and technical issues were all over the place.

I strongly doubt I'll ever try another of their games again, because not only are they faulty as hell at most things, which people openly admit, but their supposed saving grace being the writing was beyond terrible too. Maybe it was just that particular game, but I saw it get good enough reviews anyway so I'm assuming it's par for the course with their titles.

They haven't been able to replicate the magic of the first TWD game. That was something of an anomaly even the sequelds didn't reach, that alone other games from the company.

An anomaly in that it got undeserved praise. Yeah. 

The only reason anyone remembers it as good was because they were there when it was a big deal. Same with me, too. 

I don’t know...Adventure games used to be challenging and required patience and intelligence. Then people decided thinking was too stressful and only Germans kept making them. Then we got TTG and.. Then we got Trump. Lol 

I don’t understand why they got so much praise.  I personally recommend other gamers to not play their games, and that’s not something I usually do.

I don't think it got undeserved praise, it really was a breath of fresh air for this kind of story driven games. The problem is that they built an empire from a single small project, and they weren't able to turn that initial success into something with more staying power.