Aligned is very like the Bay movies in that it offered a ton of interesting designs that weren't always interpreted well in toy form... and had middling fiction that tended to present itself as more than it actually was.
This was the first major issue I had with it. Archer talked a big game about how this
was going to be the DEFINITIVE version of Transformers lore and how everything was going to be worked into this new continuity and then you see it in action and it was just stuff like you'd see on any number of fanfiction forums.
"Soundwave's tape dudes were Minicons all along" was even something I heard a bunch back when a good chunk of people
were convinced that Armada was a sequel to G1.
Oh you found a use for the Omega Lock? Why does this just feel like you're playing with a bunch of your toys? Oh? 'cause you are? Ok.
None of this stuff is bad when crafting a new continuity. Animated is distinct from the Bay movies but burrowed the AllSpark. Optimus and Megs being friends pre-war started with the Bay movies, gained life in Aligned, made it into some versions of G1, etc...
So if a new continuity wants to go "we'll use the Omega Lock from Cybertron" or whatever, sure. Nothing noteworthy there. Every continuity reboot does it to some degree.
Except Aligned treated itself like the be-all-end-all of the fiction. Not just for itself, but the franchise as a whole. It was just another iteration in a line of continuity reboots the franchise occasionally goes through, but it just presented itself as so much more when it really wasn't.
And, at worst, came off like one well-connected guy's fanfiction.
