Aesthetic is story. Gameplay is story. Writing is story. It's a fair criticism if people genuinely feel like it'll interfere with their enjoyment of the written material. That being said, refusing to take the merits of the game into account is probably being a bit shortsighted. For example, I like a lot of the changes and refinements to the combat in auto attacks and buttons being more involved rather than a clunkier 2 side interface of before. Plus the removal of the game telling enemy characteristics and you instead having to learn those. There's a nice bit more experimentation and decision making here which is great for an exploration game like Xenoblade.
But you're actually agreeing with me with your enumeration.
Aesthetic is story yes, but so are all the other elements you wrote.
Meaning it's ok to not feel good about each parts separately.
And I don't really care if people like the game or not especially, I just want it to be as I like and more games like it.
But I check forums here and there and the "discussions" rarely encourage me to participate.
I usualy get every piece of news and translate it (if in Japanese) to share with some people but all of this doesn't make me want to do it as much as it did with X. Getting tired of reading the same.
I rarely create topics anywhere also because of that. I don't really care about criticism, I mean, I'm not a developer or anything, but I also like the discussions to go somewhere if you see what I mean. I'm not Skypunch, never will I insult the others because they like a game or not, instead I take some distance and forget about sharing stuff.
Where are we talking about the generous battle system that's hiding its strategy pretty well behind a better UI with easier button mapping, many many Blades with different weapons, Arts and more making the game give more customisation than even X maybe.
The new effects in battle, weather, exploration.
The interesting atsmophere that goes far over the simple "boo hoo we're getting kids", with Takahashi involved anda story that seems to be quite intense but not as Fake over dramatic as your average Jrpg... and so on.
There's so much to cover and there's even more to discover...
Yes anyone can dislike the game, no problem. I personaly don't like some games that are loved by millions of people, whatever, I'm not going on every topics to say how much I hate the characters or battles... all the time ; ).