This honestly doesn't surprise me that much (although, I've overshot it in the Metascore league)
I absolutely agree, the previews and media we've seen looked fantastic. But I thought they looked fantastic for Colours too. Then I actually played the game, and it just wasn't that fun. It had the same problems that Heroes had - I just didn't feel they got the mix between platforming & speed anything like right. Precision jumping in Colours was a massive pain in the ass. Maybe it improved in this game, but then the speed is reduced?
I'll have a look through some of the particulars of the reviews in a bit. It's a shame. I'm sure plenty of you will have a lot of fun with this game - I've certainly enjoyed many a yellow-rated Metacritic title. Definitely among JRPG's, I can have a disproportionate amount of fun compared to reviews.
But this went from a "likely to pick up once I have a Wii-U" title to "another Sonic I'll skip" for the time being.
Essay Pro