I honestly think a lot of criticism about the game stems from the fact that it's ultimately trying a new thing and revolves around a completely different concept than even New Leaf, which while departing from a lot of (by that point) overdone AC things in favour of doing things differently, is still a fairly standard AC game at heart (even bringing back a load of GC-era stuff as a way of showing that).
There's a video from Tama Hero I watched recently where she was reviewing Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire and she talks about the plot of the game (two evil teams, one of who wants to expand the land and one of who wants to expand the sea) which to an outsider doesn't make sense at all, but if you're aware of the issue of land reclamation that was a thing in the late 1990s (which is basically a real version of what the two evil teams were doing) and the fact that either way, some damage was being done, makes perfect sense. She also mentions that ultimately, everything in the game fits into this idea of a conflict between humans and nature, and the ways we as humans try to work with nature itself. She also covers a comment she received on her review of Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal about the fact that the postgame where you go to another region entirely fits with the thematics of that game's idea of progression in time and tradition versus technology.
The themes of ACNH are a lot more obvious in comparison, but like the Pokémon games, a lot of the mechanics service the idea that you've moved away from somewhere else to a deserted island somewhere and are now able to help build a new life there: the crafting, the trying to get villagers to come to your island and the remodelling and decorating your island being the most obvious. Even the update system works within the idea that you're building a civilisation on a deserted island because the updates happen overnight for me, so in the morning new features get announced through Isabelle's announcements, like swimming being unlocked because of how they've completed a marine survey. This is ultimately in many ways a good thing: for the first time since Wild World, the world of Animal Crossing is apart from the rest of the world Animal Crossing exists in and therefore feels alien, unpredictable and more organic than LGTTC and NL, in part due to the new update system being implemented. Characters who had shops in older games either are implied to have shops elsewhere (like Reece and Cyrus, or the Able Sisters initially) or are travelling around the islands (like the visiting characters in the roster at the moment), and the fact we genuinely don't know what's going to happen in the future is ultimately interesting!
However, I also feel most of the bad things people point out are also inherently part of the game's theme too (either that or they're there for very specific reasons, like the bulletin board whenever you have someone fly to an island, which is basically a very elaborate loading screen where the game has to stop for a while): the tools breaking, the lack of NPCs, Isabelle's messages, being unable to craft using stuff from storage or bulk craft... all of these things are designed for engagement with the world you live in... as much as having a QOL update would rock in a few ways, it's also missing the point of Animal Crossing entirely by getting rid of a lot of the grind and life simulation that AC is designed around, and most of my actual criticism of the game is actually based around the fact that some of the QOL changes actually kinda suck? (like how I think flowers and trees not dying makes the game seem ironically more dead, moving all the smaller events to the Nook Stop is both incredibly handy and basically making these events suck more (given they were always lesser events than Toy Day or Halloween), or how TAHK0 on Twitter pointed out how giving the Able Sisters a changing room removes most of your interaction with the shop itself)
Personally, I'm going to criticise the game for having villager dialogue that cuts off too quickly (although I'm not gonna go "WUHH MEAN VILLAGERS bc that's overused and at its very worst descends into "couldn't do that nowadays" and then into general reaction, although they could stand to be mean at you whenever you don't do something for them), the fact that there's seasonal crafting stuff that could be events but isn't, the fact that villagers don't ask you to do stuff for them often enough (although they always wanna buy my fish and bugs?), the fact that they STILL haven't brought back the competitions from Wild World despite the fact that they were the best way of doing fish and bug stuff, ditto the weird atmospheric stuff from Wild World like the bulletin board messages of the week, and the fact that accessing your storage can't be done outside your house... but I could honestly do that with EVERY Animal Crossing game at this point, because I still feel as if it hasn't found the perfect version of Animal Crossing yet, and as much as people hold up GC or NL as perfect entries, I'm personally unconvinced.
But at the same time, New Horizons is still pretty new. It's got plenty of room to grow, and maybe it'll become Animal Crossing: Ultimate at some point? We'll never know. But you've ultimately got to look for the good in it. It's there, from the fact YOU CAN PUT VILLAGER PICTURES ON WALLS NOW, from the fact YOU CAN MAKE THE JAPANESE RURAL ISLAND VILLAGE ANIMAL CROSSING ALWAYS WAS BUT BETTER, from the fact THE GAME IS DAMN HILARIOUS... it's not a perfect game, and honestly it's a damn frustrating game sometimes. But you've gotta think about it as that. Not the BEST GAME EVER or WORST GAME EVER (because Amiibo Festival's just sitting there) but as a thing with good and bad parts, as well as annoying stuff that's intentionally annoying.
Sorry for text dumping, but that's basically my take. Bye!
