"At launch, we received over 14k review bombs from users with less than an hour of playtime. Many didn't even finish the required tutorial."
While I have ZERO interest in this type of game I have to wonder how many (if any?) of the 'review bombs' were an effort funded by other stake holders in the genre?
There are many "botfarms" out there and many of them are rentable.
Highguard turned out to be a failure for Wildlight Entertainment, and according to the former Lead Tech Artist at Wildlight, the game was labeled a failure before it ever had a fair chance.