So earlier this week on the Giant Bombcast I heard pretty disparaging remarks against the Might and Magic games, and especially the most recent one Dark Messiah. Later on in the week in the IGN podcast they also shared similar sentiments about the game. Why don't they like this game? On metacritic it has an 8.7/10 out of 727 user votes, and users are tough on games that are even moderately bad, giving it a straight up 0 sometimes even if a little thing is wrong. Personally I haven't gotten too far into it, but I like it so far. What gives with the hate? 

2D rope pissed me off .

It's got a weak story and is pretty repetitive combat wise.  Elements was horrid, though.  That version of the game was damn near broken.

I'm pretty sure on the Bombcast they just made a quick joke about it but then said they don't really know anything about it. As for IGN... well it's IGN.

I played that game, and maybe it is better on PC, but on the 360 it is awful.  I beat the first part of the game doing a kick move over and over, probably could have beat the rest of it that way had I kept playing it.  In fact I really hope I am getting this mixed up with something else because I couldn't imagine anybody finding what I played even "decent".  Although I didn't hate it as much as I hated Two Worlds. 
 
EDIT:  I just looked it up and I was a bit confused.  What I had played was the sequel, Elements, as others here have stated it is awful.  I have to wonder what could have happened if the first one was good that made the sequel so terrible.

The first one is okay, it's definitely not a great game by that times standards.
 
I think it got around a 6. And I have to agree it's a game around that score. Nothing terribly wrong with the game, but definitely nothing particularly note worthy aside from kicking people into  random stuff.

Because the kick attack ended up being the most powerful attack in the entire game. You could run through it kicking dudes off of ledges more often than not. Never played the 360 version, though. 
 
One point in this game's favor is that it brought us "heeeyyyy, pal," which a bunch of enemy guards seem to say when they see you. Say it to Matt Rorie and he'll give you a dollar!

The Kick move was probably the best part about that game, it really is quite mediocre in all honesty. It's not a good RPG, or a good FPS...it's just pretty darn bland, which sucks..cause the kick move + physics almost negated all of that.

Short and shallow, with horrid multiplayer. Good combat in single player though. Heroes of Might & Magic V was much better for its own genre than Dark Messiah was for its. As were most of the past Might & Magic games except for some crappy action adventure titles. Railing on the whole damn franchise because of a few bad games (and mostly the action spin offs at that) is pretty dumb and ignorant though, if they did that they should look at gaming history 101 once more as the franchise is a pretty important one and overall great, though it's certainly declined in more recent years.

You could run through it kicking dudes off of ledges more often than not.

I was playing the game recently, far too linear, no sense of freedom, the game really corrals you to an annoying extent.  Actual combat isn't super polished.  That's the PC version BTW, based on the demo the 360 version seemed even worse.

How don't you know?  They're obviously getting paid by other companies t o say it's bad.

 I picked it up cheap on PC and had an OK time with it. What I'd love to see is take the combat from that game and apply it to oblivion. I thought they did a great job creating interesting styles of combat, especially liked the staffs. Where as in oblivion I felt i was just waving a sword around, with no sense of weight or contact. 

People hate it because A: It was a buggy, unbalanced game with a predictable and boring story, and more personally B: Because it represents Ubisoft's Bastardization of the brand from a series of excellent (and not so excellent) RPGs and Turn Based Strategy games to a decent (if unfinished at launch) Turn Based Strategy game and a bunch of lame spinoffs.  Admittedly this is because Might and Magic was 3DO's only real moneymaker, while Ubisoft has bazillions of franchises that are more profitable than Might and Magic.
 
If asked about Might and Magic VII or Heroes III, I will most likely foam at the mouth and tell you why exactly they are some of my favorite games ever.

I hated it for being buggy as all hell, making me work to even get the damn thing running.  
 
But I did really enjoy this game, the combat system was lots of fun imo. Yes, the kick was super powerful, but that made it so fun, and the swords and spells felt powerful too, especially as you progressed. The english voice work was terrible but I quickly switched it to Spanish, which was actually good. Much more entertaining!