From what I’ve played and heard, it’s a bit of a “reset” after the highs of Endwalker, and the story takes a while to get started. It takes 20 quests to even reach the first new dungeon, which will take at least an hour+ of gameplay and cutscenes. I’m still looking forward to getting through it, but I understand the muted responses.
It’s completely supported by the story that our character wants to take a little backseat in the story, so the main protagonist is another NPC. You either like her or not, that will guide most of your xpac feeling.
If players don’t like meeting random settlements and learning random stuff about them then slowly build up the main plot, to the have a surprise turn, and explore quickly a new concept before suepr big bad appears and we got to wreck house, they didn’t play the last X expansions tbh.
and the story takes a while to get started.
That’s the problem the game has always had, though.
I played for a bit right as Endwalker came out. I went in blind, played consistently for two months, and by then, I had just finished the first third of Shadowbringers. In contrast, it took me a month-and-a-half to level my first WoW toon back during Wrath of the Lich King.
People may praise the story, but while there was a lot of great stuff, it just takes so loooooong to get there. They really do need to go through and prune the filler quests or boost experience gains.