Angst? What Angst?: Eclipse Drivers are mages infected with a virus that grants them high regeneration, enhanced strength, and special abilities, with the price of lost sanity, a compulsion to kill, and the risk of the virus going out of control. With the way infected characters go about, it's easy to forget this as neither the Huckbein or the Grendel's seem to care one iota. Even Thoma stops angsting over his condition after he's rescued by Special Duty Section 6.
Audience-Alienating Era: For some portion of the fanbase, the series has become this for the main continuity of the franchise. The series became Darker and Edgier, but the method of doing so was introducing an Anti-Magic virus into a magical setting. This led the new villains to become a gang that beat beloved favorites almost insultingly easily while being insufferable, hypocritical jerkasses, the heroes have to combat them with Flawed Prototype weapons that barely even work and the new main character is, unusually, a heterosexual male that has so far not done anything beneficial for the heroes. Even worse, it has undergone a massive Schedule Slip, releasing only 30 chapters in the four years of its publishing. Perhaps due to all of these reasons, it is currently on (a most likely permanent) hiatus.
Audience-Alienating Premise: Being part of a franchise famous for its largely female cast and yuri subtext, the manga's premise of the adventures of a male character who is The Chosen One, gets along with the previous cast seamlessly, nerfs the previous cast, demotes to extra the protagonist of the franchise, and is part of a heterosexual romance was guaranteed to set it up for failure. The manga's premise basically alienated all the franchise's long-time fans and couldn't attract new readers; after going on hiatus in 2013 with no signs of continuing since then, many consider it to be Quietly Cancelled.
Broken Base: Pretty much everything about this series. Whether Force is complete and utter garbage or a work of genius; whether Thoma is a hopeless idiot driven by naiveté or an intelligent and responsible kid trying to balance out his All-Loving Hero attitude against the monstrous enemies he's facing all of these depend on which fan you ask. For further Irony, the generation of Porsche 911 that his Divider is numbered after (996) also resulted in a Broken Base among the 911 enthusiast community.
Contested Sequel: Largely because of the Darker and Edgier atmosphere, move away from Magical Girl tropes, new main character, and largely unsympathetic villains who defeat and severely wound Signum and Hayate. A good number of people have pointed to apparent lapses in the worldbuilding, raw writing and the artists difficulties with portraying dynamic fight scenes as a sign of a general drop in quality. Continuing questionable decisions and completely out of touch ideas of who the fanbase cares about seeing in a Hot Springs Episode mean the future is not bright, especially with the "temporary" cancellation.
Creator's Pet:* During the first chapters of Force Thoma is introduced to us without much backstory and the fanbase had mixed opinions about him, then he suddenly knows Subaru. Some chapters later, his backstory finally comes around and it's revealed that he already knows and is on familial terms with Subaru and her extended family.
Isis seems to have gotten quite a few fans, unlike pretty much anyone else introduced in Force, probably because of her Badass Normal status and her being the Only Sane Man among the recruit trio.
Arnage has some love, unlike almost all the other members of her family, probably because she has yet to send someone to the emergency room.
Hades Vandein, mostly for utterly wrecking the hated Hückebein family.
Foe Yay Shipping: Signum/Cypha. Given the fandom's initial reaction to Signum losing, it probably started as a thing to troll fans with, but since it became obvious that Signum would live through Force, it seems to have been jokingly accepted by the fandom, especially given the lack of alternate ships for the Blazing General.
Mariya uses live ammo in a fight against Bureau agents on the Mid—which is kind of a Big Deal, since live ammo is exactly the kind of mass-based weaponry the Bureau is supposed to crusade against. Yet nobody seems particularly interested in finding out where a lowlife crook like herself obtained such quantities of mass-based munitions in the heart of the Bureau's domain. Granted, she doesn't have an actual gun, but bullets usually come from the same sources as firearms...
In Chapter 20, Shamal asks Vivio if she wanted to join in the mock battle with Thoma and Signum. Why would she make that suggestion given how dangerous Thoma or Lily's Eclipse powers would be to Sacred Heart/Chris if Vivio tried to fight either of them? Nanoha, on the other hand, suggests Vivio to not get involved.
Heartwarming Moments: Signum and Agito's interactions in chapter 3. Their affection for each other is quite subdued (as befits a Belkan duo on a job), but seeing the stoic knight smile for her partner and Agito finally finding happiness in service of a worthy Lord is Squee-inducing. Which makes their utter slaughter by Cypha just four chapters later all the more jarring.
Hilarious in Hindsight: Nanoha gets a new getup in this that actually makes her look like a Gundam bringing the "Nanoha is really a Gundam disguised as a magical girl" bit full circle.
Moral Event Horizon: Short-lived character Diego was only around for chapter 18 and all of 19, but boy did he cross it and then some. He physically abuses his Reactor Plug every chance he gets, treats the destruction of a town like a predator hunting prey, and was an absolute Jerkass to the extreme, even causing one of the Hückebein to respond with distaste. Thankfully, Laser-Guided Karma got him hard with his death at the end by Veyron's left hand.
Nausea Fuel: The blobs of bone-like flesh that is seen are what happens when a person gets in contact with the Eclipse and fails to be compatible with it. Looking at it is just... eugh.
Thoma has drawn a lot of fire for being a very typical, male, angst-ridden main character with a Story-Breaker Powerpulled out of nowhere that can beat out the established and well-developed main characters of previous seasons with little effort. His latest comments to both Signum and Cypha, where he wishes both the hero and the psychotic good luck and tells them to do their best before they fight, suggest Thoma has serious issues.
The Hückebein in general have been accused of being a Replacement Scrappy for the A's-era Wolkenritter, as they hit many of the same general tropes excluding motivation. Made even more obvious since most of the Hückebein's victims so far are members of the Yagami Family with only a single exception.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The Hückebein have experienced a mild case of this. They're still hated, mind you, just not as much as before. This is due to the moreunpleasantparts of their characterization being toned down (mostly in an effort to appeal to Thoma), and gradually losing their frustrating advantage over the protagonists.
Cypha's caught a lot of flak for handing Signum her first real defeat, and for being kind of a bitch about it. When it was announced that Gears of Destiny will feature Force characters, many were hoping Cypha would be included, so they can beat the crap out of her.
Curren probably beat Precia's record for instant hatedom, considering the chapter with her first appearance wasn't even translated yet and people already wanted her to die. The reason? Debuting by instantly impaling Hayate in the back, just as she was finally about to do something awesome.
While he is mentioned in Replacement Scrappy, Thoma isn't liked for his idiotic behavior and losing characterization into becoming what is seen as an idiot who keeps overlooking the behavior the Hückebein constantly exhibit. What's worse is that he is borderline useless in combat and is overshadowed by Isis and even Lily, combined with wasted character development potential.
Most people don't really like the AEC Equipment much. They prevent the heroes using magic in a setting that has previously been about high-powered magic, they usually don't work, and anyone with a Strike Cannon rather than a personalized weapon gets taken down like they were a Mook regardless of what they were treated like in any previous version of Lyrical Nanoha.
The Dividers are another example. They're the Hückebein's weapon, are very broken in terms of power, and makes any Eclipse infectee an immense threat in battle. They are also very inelegantly designed.
Thoma became a fugitive from the TSAB by breaking into the lab, stealing the Divider, and escaping with Lily. This might have led to Subaru weighing her bond with Thoma against her duty to arrest him, as well as Thoma fleeing from the Bureau while having the Sympathetic P.O.V., but Thoma eventually loses control of himself to the Eclipse, and it becomes about having to try to get through to him, rather than him trying to protect Lily and escape the Bureau.
Force in general could have been presented straight as about the conflict between the refusal of most of the main characters to kill and the fact that the only solution to the Hückebein appears to be killing them.
Signum gets chopped up, and Vita gets taken out like she's a Mook, but they take it in stride. Which is more than slightly out of character. Every time someone has threatened Hayate's life previously, the Wolkenritter have treated them as mortal enemies. In Force, they don't seem to care nearly as much.
Signum and Cypha's rivalry. With such a rocky start and looking at the Blazing General's Blood Knight tendencies as well as the eye-patched rogue's animosity to fight strong foes one would think an instant comptetitiveness would emerge between the two. Instead Signum abides to her duty almost ignoring everything else while Cypha didn't really seem eager to pursue another fight (aside of some passing remarks at Signum's good swordfighting skills), she even fled their second encounter without a care. Hopefully, their feud and mutual grudgingly learning will be more fleshed out if FORCE's hiatus ever gets lifted. It never did.
Viewer Gender Confusion: Until his profile came out, nearly everyone was convinced that Fortis was female. With his large eyes, dress-like robe, and feminine hairstyle, it's an easy mistake to make. Ironically, fortis can be translated from Latin as "manly".
