They were fools for setting it up in such a way to require an Epic account when that's totally unnecessary.

Setting it up this way and then not telling people immediately (apparently the note on the Store Page was added after things kicked off already). It makes the "Helldivers-like game EDF" joke even funnier that they even copied the exact same controversy too.

Again, it sounds more like an extremely lazy port that they didn't give a single fuck about even putting in the smallest effort to make it playable. And in doing so they pulled back the curtain to something that even small devs can usually do so easily its unnoticed.

it seems that criticizing Steam almost anywhere online is like criticizing trannies on Reddit--almost certain to be met with ire.

Because its usually done extremely poorly and ignorantly. Like, if you show up using Epic talking points (that they put in a literal powerpoint about how they would get people to use them to fight their propaganda battle for them) then you should expect to be met with "that's retarded, you're retarded" when they are obviously wrong or misleading.

Like, Epic started this. They willingly paid 6 figure+ prices to companies to screw over consumers to try and force their Store/Launcher onto them by holding games hostage. And their sycophants shit up discussions for a long time trying to support them by screaming "muh monopoly" and "muh cut" on every single other Steam news (which ran just fine because people can criticize Steam without issue on any other topic).

I am not accusing you of this, to be clear. But there is a reason why it happens that way and its entirely the fault of Epic and their literal shills.