I personally found the disparity between my individual opinion and the crowd consensus was really interesting. It seemed to be a great game that fixed all of my gripes with hearthstone and magic. There was just this tidal wave of negative opinion that seemed to come in large part from people that didn't understand or in some cases never played the game themselves.
I've been playing magic for more than 20 years, I played a lot of Hearthstone when it first came out and I've played hundreds of hours of Elder Scrolls Legends (which I liked a lot more than Hearthstone, but nowhere near as much as Magic).
I really wanted to be drawn in by Artifact, but every time I read about the basic concepts, the rules or strategies it never sounded fun and appealing. So, in the end I didn't buy it.
To borrow the board game analogy from the article. If you've been led to believe you're getting an updated Settlers of Catan and instead get Advanced Civilization, you're going to have a negative opinion of the game, even if Advanced Civilization is actually a great game with lots of fans.
I’m a magic and hearthstone player and it just didn’t look appealing to me at all. I watched a couple of game play demos even Richard Garfield playing it, and I struggled to find where the ‘fun’ was supposed to be. It just looked so complicated and serious.
I liked Artifact quite a bit, but I'll admit that it wasn't "fun" at all to me. I played it for the challenge, similar to how people will go to the gym, do puzzles, or do difficult hikes. They marketed it as a fun game for everyone, but in reality it was designed for people who wanted to play competitively.
