I have to ask you a question: did
you follow the Imperator's development? Because I did and I remember a ton of criticism under the dev diaries, especially under the more controversial ones (about the "fun and engaging" single five-year consul, four buildings, mana etc.). You can read it all here if your memory is fuzzy:
Development Diary #1 - 28th of May 2018 - The Vision: https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/imperator-development-diary-1-28th-of-may-2018.1101600/ Development Diary #2 - 4th of June 2018 - The Map: Provinces and Cities...
forum.paradoxplaza.com
Yes, there was hype, because people were excited that a new Rome game is going to be released and it will have pops, beautiful huge map etc. But there was no "unconditional" support of everything the devs announced. People wanted to love the game, but bad features were clearly seen by the majority even then.
EU4 expansions - the same story. People hated the button where you get one building slot for a ton of admin capacity, people were wary of the concentrate development, pillage capital and curry favors. A couple of hyped guys aren't "unconditional support".