I think what kills it for most people is that after Barcelona, the game world offers very little except the linear approach to the game's main focus, ie the Relic and the start of the war. There is almost no areas for the player to go and buff up, gather stuff to sell, or just to explore. There are almost no random encounters (except for the rare off course crystal events) so the game sort of demands that you follow its script. That is, either you move on to the next quest, whether you want to or not, or else you can't play, period. This game had been compared to Fallout, but in FO, you can literally ignore the quests for as long as you want and go about your business killing, buying, and selling. All the while, you're leveling up and getting into a comfortable position to reenter the quest queue whenever you feel you're ready. Lionheart doesn't allow for that, which IMHO is what makes players hate it.