Larian does not care about the franchise or the ruleset. Yes, they generated a lot of interest by pretending to make a 5E game. Swen has wanted the cache of the license for a long time. It will make a lot of money just based on reputation. This is part of the videogame industry.
This game is targeted at young stream-watchers and redditors with short attention spans and a strong preference for memes and inspirational drama over anything else (such as gameplay). The kiddies chat on streams all day and share dumb GIFs back and forth, and Larian wants their dollars. That is the gaming market right now. If you actually know anything about D&D, your money is taken for granted here, and there is no need to cater to your desire for mechanics, challenges, complexity, etc. The kiddies don't like anything with a learning curve.
Instead of thinking about how misleading the press releases were, just look at this rudimentary product as the latest cringey, "empowering" Larian game with some watered down versions of real games in it. Pretend the D&D logo is not on the game. Then the glass is 25% full!
Well, thanks, I guess? Being that I'm 59 years old, being called young makes my day. I'm not sure about the rest of your rhetoric, but hey, I'll take being called young. I'll tell you another secret, DnD version didn't play into my buy decision either. Baldur's Gate 3 did. I played both of it's predecessors, when they were new releases, so I got hyped for that reason alone. No stream watching/chatting required, nor do I require a reddit account. I'm still trying to figure out where I was misled on the marketing. The main trailer shows people being abducted by mind flayers, and then someone turning into one. So far, I haven't turned into one, but I was certainly abducted. That's a pretty dark theme, in and of itself, let alone all the stuff in the 2 acts that we know nothing about, and whatever is being held back in this one.
