I think those of us who spend a little more time on forums and such talking about games really over estimate how knowledgeable the average consumer is about these things. Millions of people never, ever question the quality of games they want. They played call of duty for a decade, so they just kinda have an expectation. Same thing when I go out to buy a loaf of bread. Just more expensive lol
So it’s not a faux-shock. For some people this is the first time they bought a game that they had an expectation for and it fell radically short. Why else would they start complaining? They haven’t had a reason to before and they just aren’t generally aware of all of this. If you ask the average call of duty player what they think of Activision, they probably have little to no opinion on them and haven’t even heard of Blizzard. Just like how I don’t have an opinion on every single director, movie studio, etc.