My problem with Awakening is that it released 4 years after Shadow Dragon, and didn't bring anything genuinely new or interesting to the series. (Pair Up? That's a mechanic that trivializes easier difficulties.) Awakening also took out features introduced YEARS ago that made FE6 - FE10 awesome (Rescue), removed Shove and the Skill system in Radiant Dawn, and had a story the seemed to be Frankenstein monster of the previous games, picking apart aspects that other games had that made the story good and trying to make it mesh together. Brought back the wrong features, imo (Reclassing and World Map). My problem with the game is that I feel it failed to improve on the series. The character design, story, gameplay, difficulty, animation, graphics aren't appealing to me. You can tell that they didn't put as much effort as they should have, with supporting evidence being most of DLC maps, Gangrel's second chapter, and Inigo's chapter, being maps from previous Fire Emblem games. They didn't even try to develop new maps for the a bunch of the DLC. My sincerest gripe with the game was that it was released too late with WAY too little improvement and the quality of the game seemed to taper off. Now, as for why Veterans gripe about this is easy to say. It's because we've seen what greatness Fire Emblem can be or has been. We know what we like in a Fire Emblem game.

I just want to add that I am not an advocate for Awakening hate, but more of an advocate for honesty and proper evaluation of the game. I like the game. But in the back of my mind, I was always know that Awakening could have better. I believe that this is the most true with Awakening and more so than any other Fire Emblem game.