I’m sensing a bit of choice-supportive bias. In other words, people who’s judgement is clouded by the fact that they invested money and/or time into something, so they automatically look past the disappointing aspects of a product and rationalize that it’s actually good because XYZ. Saying Bethesda made a Bethesda game and people got a Bethesda game doesn’t really speak to the game itself. It dismisses the significant shortcomings of what fans of Bethesda games have come to appreciate and expect based on the great Bethesda games of the past. At the end of the day, the best aspects of any single-player game should always be gameplay and story first. Everything else should come secondary to those.
To your argument of people complaining about a lack of “Easy” mode in a Dark Souls game, well… that’s because it’s a Souls game. That’s literally what it was founded on and that is what fans of the franchise expect from it. They pride their fandom on it being something that’s exceedingly difficult to get through compared to most other games and they wear that achievement like a badge of honor. If Souls games started cheapening the experience and letting casuals have their day, the series would quickly lose it’s high regard with the veteran fanbase.