YMMV / We Are the World

• Dead Horse Genre: As noted by internet reviewer Todd in the Shadows, the "charity single" genre has been parodied to death, which makes the selection of celebrities for the updated version (particularly Josh Groban, who has appeared in parodies of the format) rather amusing.
• Don't Shoot the Message: Even Saturday Night Live admitted that while the 2010 remake was underwhelming, it was still well-intentioned. The tribute to Jackson mere months after his death was also appreciated by many.
• First Installment Wins: While not considered bad, the 2010 remake is widely seen as an underwhelming (if well-intentioned) attempt to recapture the magic of a once-in-a-generation musical event. The line-up of artists is partly to blame. The original featured plenty of artists who'd already been popular for decades by 1985, and plenty who remain quite popular today (like Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Bruce Springsteen, Willie Nelson, and Bob Dylan); by contrast, the remake mostly features artists associated with a very specific window of time in the late 2000s (like Lil Wayne, Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, Joe Jonas, Adam Levine, and Josh Groban), making it something of an Unintentional Period Piece.
• Franchise Original Sin: The 2010 version was criticized for including non-Americans and non-singers as performers. But the original version had Dan Aykroyd, a Canadian comedian. However, while this wasn't a universally accepted choice, there wasn't as much of a backlash because he was a member of the chorus rather than a featured singer and had already been a major celebrity in the US for a decade by that point. Not only that, but he's an excellent singer as Lionel Richie himself pointed out and had chart success thanks to The Blues Brothers, so his presence wasn't as incongruous as those of people like, say, Vin Diesel.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Saturday Night Live mocked the involvement of Vince Vaughn and Jeff Bridges in the 2010 version, but they were just following in the footsteps of Dan Aykroyd's incongruous participation in the original. ^note He did have chart success with The Blues Brothers, and Lionel Richie himself points out that Dan is a fantastic singer but still...
• Narm: The 2010 remake features bombastic belting from Wyclef Jean in Haitian, which unfortunately was panned by professional critics of the time who called it nonsensical and unintentionally hilarious.
• Padding: Not wanting to limit the money raised to just the singles market, a We Are the World album was released, but obviously there was no way they were going to be able to have the whole ensemble record multiple songs together, but at the same time they needed something to accompany the unedited version of the title song. So they filled out the album with new material ("nine new superstar songs") by artists from the original session (Bruce Springsteen, Tina Turner, Huey Lewis and the News, Steve Perry, Kenny Rogers, The Pointer Sisters), plus two songs by artists who didn't participate in the session but still wanted to signal their support for the cause (Prince, Chicago), and topped it off with "Tears Are Not Enough", the Canadian Charity Motivation Song for Ethiopia.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Some fans still question Dan Aykroyd's involvement in the original version. For what it's worth, Lionel Richie did advocate for him and he can sing, but aside from being primarily known as an actor, he was the only Canadian in a sea of (deliberate) Americans.^note Done to associate themselves from the all-British cast of "Do They Know It's Christmas?", albeit with Bob Geldof being in the crowd as well, but since he organized/inspired it, why not?
  • Amusingly, the Canadian Charity Motivation Song "Tears Are Not Enough" took the involvement of comedians even further by having a bunch of SCTV cast members (John Candy, Robin Duke, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara) as part of its chorus.
  • The 2010 remake was commonly criticized for its choice of soloists, most notably the selection of Justin Bieber as the opening act.
• Tear Jerker: Michael Jackson died eight months before the 2010 remake was recorded. As a tribute to him, his first singing part from the original was inserted into the remake—completely unaltered. The video also splices in footage of him from 1985, overlaid with footage of his sister singing in harmony with him.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: The title/chorus of the song has been criticized as a typically Eagleland Type 2 sentiment - a bunch of Brits sang "feed the world", and a bunch of Americans replied "we are the world". Their hearts were certainly in the right place, but next to the song that inspired it, the chorus can seem a little tone deaf (though "Do They Know It's Christmas?" itself has been criticized for being patronizing toward the famine victims).

---