Are you saying that if you don't play it, it's already bad? "Didn't live up to expectations" is nonsense. What should the 4th installment "prove"?

Because many, including myself, expected the fourth installment to be a progression from Heroes III. Instead, the developers changed the core, the structure of the game. I mean that the hero became a separate stack in battle mode. Also, the hero's personal stats stopped influencing the stats of other creatures; it's all about tactics now. It turned into an RPG-like game.

And the 5th installment is not just a collection of the best elements from previous parts; it's a DIFFERENT game, just like the 4th, the 3rd, and even the 2nd and 1st.

Of course, it's different. But the developers picked up on the ideas started in the 4th and 3rd installments and continued them.