Leaving aside the setting/characters and story argument, my casual observation in this sub is they want the same melee. They want to the ability to ignore the bow/sling and be a "spear main."

In HZD they wanted combos and chain attacks because that game only had light and hard melee attacks. Then West added combo and chain attacks but it wasn't the same as Souls.

They also want more of a custom build. The spear has a couple of upgrades but it's mostly +damage. They want to be able to customize and min/max their melee game to be like "my spear has a 78% chance to cause 12 fire damage per tick" or whatever.

I think the overall look and feel of Horizon is also lacking the dark, gritty, Serious Gamer vibe that those players look for. Horizon enemies look like, you know, horses and turtles rather than a demonic coal-cinder golem that vomits snakes. The bandits look like Tuskan raiders rather than a Sepultura album cover. It's just not their vision of badass.