To be fair, I HAVE seen about as much praise for the better character dynamics in Bumblebee. Although it's not brought up a LOT, it seems to be one of those things that doesn't get brought up if it's working properly (like your blood pressure, or your car engine) but will get talked about when it isn't.
But of course there are circles where it's the designs that did all the heavy lifting. As soon as I see someone go "yeah just watch the first five minutes, on Cybertron. That's the whole movie for me", I know that that's the whole conversation for me because I'm not going to bother with any more.
I mean, I've seen people say they got "chills" from the moment in Kingdom when Prime brings out the Matrix and it shines a beam into the sky, and then toward where the Allspark is. It's just another macguffin moment in the least terrible of the trilogy, but they got "chills" because it was THEIR macguffin and whipping it out to make it shine a beam, just that very action, has been codified into their brain as all it takes for something to be good. Never mind that it was literally a sentient flashlight, or that it was a plot device existing solely to point to another plot device, or that Optimus' entire character here was to be the plot device carrier. None of that's needed.
