Yahtzee Croshaw of Zero Punctuation went on record as proclaiming it to be one of the worst games he has ever reviewed and temporarily turned it into a Running Gag, serving as a punchline in other reviews.
"Owned by Too Human."note Denis Dyack, in a publicity stunt on the gaming forum NeoGAF, infamously tried to call out all members of the forum to state if they were "For" or "Against" Too Human. If the game was successful, they would have to adopt "Owned by Too Human" as their forum tag. If the game was a flop, he'd adopt "Owned by GAF" as his. He was banned before he ever had to own up to it, but the tag would go on to be mocked for a while by the game's detractors. Especially after the lawsuit surrounding the game led to the studio shutting down, causing people to joke that Dyack himself had been "Owned byToo Human."
The combat controls. Baldur attacks with the right stick, with all of his non-stick attacks auto-locking onto the nearest target. Meanwhile, the camera is awkwardly controlled with the shoulder buttons. This is so at odds with the control schemes used by other games that it can take some time to get used to, turning the gameplay experience into an Early Game Hell wherein the player struggles to adjust the camera to see around themselves, find themselves whiff most of their attacks, or focusing on the entirely wrong target while a shielded foe is blowing them up with missiles. This is especially the case if one is using Commando and/or a more ranged playstyle.
The death sequence was pointed out in just about every single review. A long, unskippable animation that plays every single time you die, and considering how notoriously frail Baldur is, you're going to see this a lot.
So Bad, It's Good: Greatly zig-zagged in public opinion. To some, Too Human may not have been a good game but it certainly tried for what it was and at least tries to fulfill its ambitions, even if poorly. The art direction may not be the greatest on humans, but environmental-wise they certainly pulled out the stops (until the end game at least). With the game becoming free on Xbox One, it gained a sort of Bile Fascination as a result. For most, however, it's simply seen as a downright bad game screwed by Silicon Knights' attempts to get another Eternal Darkness entry funded, and pretentious with its mythology-based storyline. This plus the frustrating and unbalanced gameplay, obnoxious death-and-respawn cutscene, and poorly thought-out design filled with the worst of the generation's colors mushing everything together turn it into a miserable experience for its detractors.
