I played at release and haven't followed it since then. At the time, I remember it being highly criticized and not popular with the community. It has been over a decade, and I could be misremembering.
Yeah I'm not really sure either. I get the sense that either it got better over its lifetime or over time people came around to it à la the Star Wars prequels. But I don't really remember it. I played it a little early in its life but don't remember anything about it.