the metacritic value seems to reflect that, but most of the post-mortem on 3rd Birthday has to do with the treatment of its female lead, and the end-game reveal. even people who never played the originals have had less than kind things to say about it.

the point seems to be more that tabata has a record of treating female characters poorly, or thoughtlessly. that's why it's probably for the best he didn't get to make either of the character episodes focusing on them.