Finished Xenoblade Chronicles 3's main story yesterday and... I can see why the community has been unhappy with the antagonist now. The writing of the villains are some of the weakest in the series, and probably all the Xeno games.
Honestly, Egil and Malos were way better antagonists. At the same time I really loved the protagonist team this time, so it kind of balances it out. I just wish the bad guys' MO didn't feel like it didn't belong in a Xenoblade Chronicles game...

I hope the DLC story is good. I'll do the quests that I'm missing and just wait for the season pass content to come out. Monolith Soft did a banger job with the gameplay and quest writing though.