> Despite it being reviewed every well upon release, gamers expected even more.

Gamers expected what was presented in the initial demo. A really dynamic world that changed depending on your creature's abilities, a sandbox game where you could affect things by designing different types of creatures.

All this was scrapped, and what was developed was very different than what was shown in the early prototype demo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8dvMDFOFnA

No wonder gamers wanted the thing they got excited about in the first place.