I give you the actual real answers, instead of people just giving personal grievances.

1. Ed Boon & NRS’ refusal to embrace MKX’s gameplay. Everyone knows that’s the best gameplay they’ve ever done, but NRS is obsessed with recreating MK2. The lack of running and neutral game is what hurts NRS games competitively, it leads to who can zone the best.

(This upset the competitive base).

2. Dominic’s writing. MK1’s story was great up until the time travel/multiverse nonsense. And NRS’ refusal to bring back Onaga, literally EVERYONE wants him to be the next boss, but it now seems they are purposefully avoiding him since they just used a lame Shang boss fight again.

(This upset the lore base).

3. The DLC is atrocious and shills kept trying to justify it. 90s nostalgia has been out of style for a while now. And NRS won’t give the elder Gen Z fans more 3D Era characters. And they keep pushing out DLC characters that either nobody wants or that should’ve been in the base game. I grew up around the time Conan was popular. Literally no one was asking for him in an MK game.

(This hurt the PR/Longevity of the game).

4. The single player content & multiplayer balance was trash. Outside of story mode, all MK1 offers in Invasions. Which they could’ve just made a menu or tower. The over world is a slog to get through and consumes way too much of the time. And if there’s a casuals who wanna actually give multiplayer a try, a handful of characters online are just so much better than the rest of the roster (especially if they can zone). And since we can’t run in the game, this type of play style in unenjoyable for casuals.

(This upset the Casuals).

Nothing killed it, it was a sweet game on Sega Genesis and MKII was even better

I never even bought it. It looked monetized to hell compared to MK11, and it didn't seem to offer much more for the increased price. I liked most of the character designs, and of course the game looks beautiful. But that's not going to cut it for me. All I heard about it was that it added a lot of aerial combat, which I really don't care to tangle with.

The $50 story DLC did it for me. No fuckin way was I gonna pay that kinda price for that little story and additional content.

I hate the loot system too. Fuckin waste of my time. I miss the Krypt.

I think a lot of the MK1 experience is good and well done. I think there's a lot of style and gameplay that make it fun and mostly worth the cost of entry. The cameo system included, although poorly balanced, added another dimension to the gameplay.

Where they lose me is the DLC. They asked a lot for the expansion and didn't offer much. On top of that many of the added characters should've been there, or needed rebalancing after release.

I'm still not convinced you should take an NRS fighter seriously, but I'm usually willing to see what they'll put out.

The monetization, obviously. How is this even a question? Mfs paid $110 for the game and Netherrealm/WB expect them to pay double that on DLC

because it was not immortal combat 1

As someone who only pirated it, I thought it was pretty good. I just wish they would bring back create a fighter, but I know that's never gonna happen because then they couldn't charge for new ones.