Some crystal ball fun time, how well do you think MEA will sell? Myself I'm guessing launch sales bigger than DAI but overall be a mild internal disappointment, maybe around half of Witcher 3. I really don't remember which game had so much apathy and antipathy built up before launch, this all seems unprecedented.
Things going for it
Loyal ME fanbase
Unique setting and subgenre combination that no games match
Carry-forward goodwill from ME3: Multiplayer
Something for Xbox One action RPG fans
Things against
Lukewarm to negative reception from core gamers to marketing materials
Animation fiasco surpassed ACU meme levels
RPG fan antipathy to Bioware (especially from RPG Codex)
General core gamer antipathy to EA and Origin
Serious genre fatigue
Insanely strong competition from Zelda, Horizon, Nier, Torment, etc
Massive overhang from ME3 ending disappointment
It'll do great.
I think you're really overestimating the effects of some of these things. Reception is mostly positive. A contingent of some people on NeoGAF isn't really the best representation and we all know this.
Almost every video on YouTube has an overwhelming like to dislike ratio and the general consumer isn't thinking about "EA and Origin" or freeze framing and analyzing every mouth and glitch with every video. Bioware still has mass appeal.
Yup, I totally agree here. GAF can be a huge echo chamber at times.
I think most of those negatives aren't even applicable outside of most small (relative to how many copies the game will sell) gaming forums.
"massive overhang"? People outside of enuthusiast forums aren't hung up on how a 5 year old game ended.
antipathy to EA/Origin? BF1 did fine, TF2 did fine, Madden always does fine. EA/Origin is fine. Despite the game being made by Bioware, do people really not buy stuff because it's EA? Again, outside of small gaming forums, I don't think so.
Genre fatigue is only a function of how unoriginal the game is/will be. Horizon just showed us that. Zelda just showed us that. Can't hardly picture a genre more "fatigued" than open world, yet both games did fine. Maybe, maybe, series fatigue. But even then, it's been five years. that's awhile.
Strong competition? Yup. Lots of good games out there, and for most people, just because there are more good ones, doesn't necessarily mean their gaming budgets triple for the month.
Marketing materials? Eh, i've been fine with most of what i've seen. I think there's a lot we don't know yet (and won't until release) and it seems like the planets are massive and there will be lots to do and explore (despite the "handful" of explorable planets).
Animation stuff is what it is. As was pointed out before in other threads, ME never had fantastic facial animations and it didn't stop those from being successful. And it's largely been the same gifs being beaten to death on GAF over and over, so it's hardly indicative of the entire game.
I think it'll do just fine on its own merits, with the big question mark being how much money people have left to spend on games by the end of March.