I've heard all the controversy and the counter-arguments when people talk about Hatred. I was originally in the "Against" crowd mainly because I didn't want an example of why video games are bad for you.
A while ago I watched one of Total Biscuit's WTF videos and, after much contemplation, I not only agree with his views and conclusions but I must also admit my own complicity in Destructive Creations' scheme. They set out to distill a video game genre's assumptions into a nearly pure game, but they dressed it up and advertised it in the worst possible way. Did they make money? Sure; I'll give them that. Did they make a game? Yes; I will also give them that.
Did they prey on everyone's sensibilities for a relatively cheap influx of cash and lazily depend on those sensibilities? Of course.
The large part of this controversy is that people are looking at this game for a certain type of commentary on the state of video games. What the public got was a lazily built game using controversy to sell itself rather than sell itself as a video game. Total Biscuit's review points out the lackluster design in gameplay mechanics: committing "execution style" scenes for health does not make much sense in a Diablo clone game where fast action is the point of the play. The black and white coloring for the world makes the action look plain and dull in TB's review footage. I would have a hard time swallowing this decision to make nearly everything drab.
There could have been a whole lot more work done on this game. Destructive Creations could have worked hard on making a quality game that had substance and value to it. All the developers did was depend on angry rhetoric and lazy game making to bilk people of their cash.
If you are going to use controversy, be worthy of the fallout, hype, and conversations that go with it.
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