The best thing as a gamer you can do is not pre-order, AND do plenty of research. multiple sites of reviews, trailers (gameplay especially), the developers (if it's their first game, are they experienced?).

A lot of factors can tell you about a game. People don't do research at all and wonder why they get outraged (like buying Sekiro purely because it was a Souls-like, but being outraged it wasn't like Dark Souls).

Games have been getting worse on a steady decline for years before Covid. Covid and working at home is harder, but outside something like bouncing ideas off people in the same room doesn't have the impact on quality people say it does.

People want something to blame for why their new shiny game sucks.