I'm afraid Witcher 3 is in the same position as Half Life 3 and Bioshock Infinite when it comes to expectations. The 'hype' is so gigantic that it will never deliver on unrealistic expectations of people. The reactions to the first E3 demonstration proved that, people(me included) had something else in their heads. People expect it to be more than it is and the chances of that happening are very slim.
(not that I'm defending BSI btw >_>)
I can't agree with this either.
Criticism is systematically mischaracterized as, on one extreme, «nitpicking» or, on the other, the by-product of «unrealistic expectations». This sort of labelling strikes me as just an attempt to dismiss the criticism at hand in lieu of addressing it. The reality is I haven't read a single post along the lines of «Damn, The Witcher 3 isn't the immaculate masterpiece I have been led to believe it would be after all. Pre-order cancelled».
What I've seen instead is people pointing out very specific flaws. Lip sync is somewhat off, a few models seem to lack self-shadowing, running is a bit stiff, etc. Now, for example, will lip sync be pristine by the time the game releases? Probably not, given what John Mamais said, and no one contested, that full scale performance capture is prohibitively expensive. But has anyone declared the current state of lip sync to be a deal breaker? No, no one has. Were people nonetheless justified in pointing out the obvious problems with it? Absolutely.
Trying to pigeonhole criticism in abstract and hyperbolic terms leads nowhere. Either criticism is valid or it is not. Ether valid criticism can be addressed before the game launches or it cannot.
The rest matters very little.
