Were we Too harsh on Mass Effect Andreomda???

I think there were assuredly issues with the game at launch. Animation issues, glitches, etc. This is not unusual for AAA games launched recently, but MEA might have had a few more glitches than most.
There continue to be some issues with the game, assuredly. Dialogue is hit-or-miss, some people find the antagonist to be unbelievable/bad, and the ratio of "fetch-quests" to quality quests is closer than maybe we would like after the criticisms of DAI.

That being said, I loved Andromeda and feel that assuredly it was judged too harshly by the public, the gaming press, and some reviewers. I understand that expectations were high, but they were probably unreachable. It's kind of like what happened with No Man's Sky, but reversed. In No Man's Sky, Sony and the development studio promised too much of the game. Said there would be all these random encounters, space battles, you could potentially meet up with other players, etc. Instead, the game was lackluster compared to what was advertised, however it was still a pretty decent game if you were just told what it actually was. Mass Effect suffered the opposite. There wasn't much advertising, Bioware and EA didn't tell us much about it, but it got so overhyped by the community that when it came out I was expecting things to be in it that were not, but it was my fault. I imagined that there might be some things in MEA based on what was in other games coming out recently and very vaguely based on an old leaked survey. When those things weren't in the game, I was bummed out a bit, but it wasn't Bioware's fault. They never promised me those things. I just imagined them, hyped them in my own head. I think that was a big part of the disappointment. Self-hype.

Of course others were still upset about the ME3 endings, upset about M. Heir, upset about gay romances, upset about DAI fetch quests (before MEA was even out), and upset about "ugly Feminism" SisRyder, etc. Had the game been perfect it would still have gotten hate from those who wanted more Shep and those upset about ME3.

Is it the best game ever? No. Is it the game I thought it would be? No. Is it a good game worth playing? I think so. And I do think that fans and detractors alike were far too critical of the game at launch. 0's on Metacritic because "No Garrus" or "SJW's"?? Sickening.

Overall, it seemed that gaming journalism and YouTube were far too eager to have something to hate on, especially after the successes of HZD and BOTW. And we as fans were willing to let them drag the game through the mud because it didn't fit our own personal narrative of what MEA was supposed to be. People were so eager to point out small inconsistencies and compare it to the OT that they didn't allow MEA to be the game it was, only the game it wasn't.

And now Bioware Montreal is likely pretty much gone, and I can't help but feel bad for everyone involved. What should have been celebrated as the beginning of a new chapter for Mass Effect fans was instead torn apart, every aspect scrutinized, derided. Should games be the best they can be? Sure. But while MEA is far from perfect, it did not deserve the hate that came its way.

As much as it's easy to dismiss the people saying bad things about the game as simply being haters, every game no matter how good has haters. ME:A however had a lot more of them than normal, even among the fanbase that wasn't just hopping on the hate bandwagon because of animation issues or "muh SJWs".

Had the game been a lot better then it would have gotten a lot less hate, even if the animation issues and SJW stuff remained with the game(which as I noted before, brought in a lot of extra hate).

Also, why do people talk about comparing it to the OT like that's a bad thing? Why shouldn't I compare Mass Effect to earlier Mass Effect titles?

Sure it's bad when people say "No Garrus, it's terrible", but not liking the new direction that it took in some cases is a perfectly valid criticism of the game. There are certain expectations that we get when a game says Mass Effect on the front based on the standards the OT set up for it.

In terms of the criticism, yeah I feel some of the criticism was deserved (asari clones, complaints towards story, complaints towards villain, facial animation criticism was a little exaggerated, etc.). In terms of hate, I feel this is where the internet went overboard. Remember how those people were sending a female game dev rape/death threats because supposedly, she worked on the facial animations, turns out she didn't. Great job internet!

That's totally unacceptable the threats. That is a coward. God forgive me but cowards like those morons need to be brutalized. Publicly. Not killed... just beaten so the pain lasts for weeks. Then stripped naked to show off their miserable, little manhood and marched around like Game of Thrones. That's justice, rehabilitation and cost effectiveness in one day. Crazy? Not to me.

That's totally unacceptable the threats. That is a coward. God forgive me but cowards like those morons need to be brutalized. Publicly. Not killed... just beaten so the pain lasts for weeks. Then stripped naked to show off their miserable, little manhood and marched around like Game of Thrones. That's justice, rehabilitation and cost effectiveness in one day. Crazy? Not to me.

Yeah, but that's a very vocal stalker minority. A sort of self declared fandom you find with sports and entertainment all over the board. People who can't make a distinction between a product and the people behind it. You won't find that sort of behavior if your favorite brand of toilet paper suddenly turns out to be itchy. It's people taking things way to seriously and are under the delusion of having some kind of personal relationship with the producers.