I won't comment the rest because I don't want to derail the thread further, but if a football team gets bad results, the coach is the first guy getting fired ;) 

Not really, GM's get fired all the time they just get less press than the HC because the HC is a more public figure. The moral of the story is while Spencer was the head of the MS game studio he still had to report to and follow the lead of Mattrick. Now he only reports to the CEO of Microsoft, he is in control of the entire gaming division.

In 10 years, with xbox 2x out the it still wont be his fault. But now that he is CEO of MS the changes will start to happen next gen.

There's nothing I love more than watching a fresh new IP get hyped to high heaven, only to have metacritic/opencritic send it crashing back to earth.

Next up on the "This isn't as good as we hyped it up to be" block... Star Citizen.

Followed by.... Days Gone

I thought I was the only one that felt that way

Uh, what? The issue isn't that the people playing it aren't happy, because folks like you are clearly playing it and SOME people like it. 

Some people like escargot, too. Doesn't mean it's the sort of thing for mass market appeal. 

The point people are trying to make is that the game is not making a LOT of people happy. Some like it, many don't. You're defending the 'lack of progression' as a selling point, but clearly it's not when it happens to be one of the biggest complaints about the game and a prime reason why many are giving it mediocre reviews. 

Your posts seem to act like the minority are speaking for the majority. Like the folks who do like it are somehow more 'right' than those who don't. Cut that out. The game is a critical disappointment, you're just going to have to live with that. Good, solid game idea but no depth. That's it. Quit trying to defend it and act like others are wrong for being critical of an element they don't enjoy. It's a completely valid response, and I happen to agree that the game would be far better if it had an actual progression system. as it stands, they're charging full price for a game worth perhaps one third of that, if I'm being generous. 

If you like it, that's fine! all the power to you! I loved the movie Hook, but I don't pretend it's a cinematic masterpiece. 

there is hype for Days Gone? the overwhelming majority of comments about the game seem to be "meh.. another zombie game"

@ topic)

I can see why people are enjoying this game although it's not a critical darling. The tools are there to have a good time with friends and "create your own stories", yet it's sad that mission design is that monotone and grinding for 50/50/50 seems to take a long time of doing the same type of quests over and over and over again to reach those "legendary quests"(which hopefully are more satisfying - but a strange decision to "lock them away" like this). With a bit more thoughtful and varied mission design this game could have a much better critical reception - whether or not sales/player retention is good enough for the devs to actually get the time to implement new things will be decided in the coming weeks and months.

I've watched some Twitch streams and the game looks really fun when you have a whole crew and engage in ship battles and there are cannonballs and pirates flying in all directions. Unfortunately there seems to be a whole lot of doin' nothin' in between the exciting parts and the game seems all around shallow and low on content. A game like this really needs more ships and a lot more options when it comes to ship equipment. From what I understand you only have ordinary cannonballs, which is extremely disappointing as you'd get a much deeper combat system if you also had grapeshots, bombs, heated shots, chainshots, etc.

Star Citizen looks amazing in terms of graphics... gameplay? meh, no idea.
Could well be one of those games that gets thrashed by critics.

Days gone? nah that sh*t looks solid when it comes to gameplay, and its not like its a bad looking game.
also hyped to high heaven? most ps4 guys are like "looks okay" and xbox guys are like "state of decay 2 is better".

I personally think Days Gone will end up a better game than State of Decay 2, from watching gameplay videos.
Expecting it to score better Metacritically than State of decay 2.

It’s long time Spencer takes his hat.