It’s really just the new progression systems that were introduced ruining the experience. The soft sunsetting with “New Gear” being pushed hard and then the hard capping of players’ power level to always be below that of the AI, effectively making power increases meaningless. The campaign was good. A bit rough at the start and they did need to patch some fixes in like the increase in camera speed for Matterspark. To be honest, I’ll admit that my gaming history gives me some bias here - one of my first consoles was the GameCube and Metroid Prime’s initial launch. For me the campaign very much felt like stepping back into an old pair of shoes I haven’t worn in years, but I can see how that might’ve upset some people who were much more used to Destiny’s traditional gameplay loop - especially coming off the heels of Final Shape. The campaign itself isn’t bad. The writing for it is honestly a very strong start for the new saga going forward. The gameplay definitely has a learning curve but it’s solid once you understand what is going on and that most of the puzzle tools are also astoundingly powerful in combat (Matterspark blinds and stunlocks with huge burst damage, relocator is big AoE void suppression, matterweave is infinite suspension grenades). The biggest issue, I think, is that the game isn’t great at teaching people how to use these tools in an effective manner. It’s the problem Destiny has always had for the last ten years, even with New Lights. I would’ve thought Bungie had learned from the tool tips in Rite of the Nine but apparently not, and to be fair some of the Matterspark puzzles towards the end have no business being in the game without a tutorial for the more advanced movement techniques and with controls that are significantly less precise than the Morph Ball in the Prime titles. It’s not perfect… but you’ve always got to take numbers like that with a grain of salt. Correlation isn’t necessarily causation. I also have to wonder where those metrics are coming from and if they’re including the free to play players who are trying the first mission out and just deciding it’s not for them. I know for a fact one of my siblings would count among that number but it’s not because they quit the game - they just live in the Crucible and almost never set foot outside of it unless they’re dragged kicking and screaming.