That's a bogus argument. Their job is to produce the best version they can within the allocated schedule. If at some point compromises need to be made, that decision is on them. Maybe they figured that having blighttown-esque frame-rates all over the place was worse than cutting down on the lighting, maybe the feedback from test was that the dark-room mechanic was simply un-fun.
Do you expect them to ignore stuff like that? What would you have them do, cancel the project because they underestimated peak-load conditions on aging hardware?
The bottom line is that they've delivered a 90+ Metacritic game, and whatever you think of the accuracy of your average review, that's as bona-fide a recognition that they made the right creative choices as it gets.
Its also why this "rage" is so pedantic and, frankly, so ingracious and despicable. FROM have produced a game that has reviewed exceptionally and judging by the comments on the OT thread, is extremely well liked by its players.
Meanwhile in this thread we have people metaphorically spitting in FROM's face because they feel "misled"...
From Software did not formally inform us customers of this downgrade. Most only found out based on their own gathered evidence, scrutiny of officially-released media and on release date itself. If From had formally informed us pre-release of this downgrade, then personally I would have no problem with it.
But they didn't.
The creator and third parties informed me of this product's superior quality, but upon arrival it turned out to be inferior. I paid money for an inferior product.
I saw and played the
stable, working, playable superior version, on this console (PS3), mere weeks ago.
There was no official indication or warning that I would receive an inferior cut version on release day. The creator continues to remain silent regarding
the reason for, or any future course of action regarding fixing, its inferiority. And they
continue to advertise the product as its old superior version on console.
That's misleading.
I feel this rage is
entirely justified.