Yes "cheesy" and "dated" because new Windows version was about to be released in 3 months from publication of that article. So marketing machine portraying everything old as bad and everything new as better was running full speed.

In the end we all know how "well" W8 was received due to Metro components. Slightly modified Aero theme was still there, all resource files like icons, graphics were largely carried in. Aesthetically and visually that version of Windows was like 5-year old would made a papier mache operating system of two different products.