Title is self-explanatory. What games do you feel were lambasted by critics, but didn't deserve it?
For me, it's Thief, the 2014 version. The biggest gripe about Thief, in my opinion, was that it was judged for what it wasn't (the old Thief games with better graphics) than what it was, a modern game with a far more hardcore emphasis on stealth. Yes, I do think that it could have done with a more minimalist and open-world approach, like the Dark Age, but it was still pretty fucking good. I judged it on its own merits, and for that, I very much enjoyed it. I put over 130 hours into it and it's still a game I know I'll dust off from time to time and replay.
I liked its strict emphasis on stealth, something I feel Dishonored lacked. Dishonored still let you approach the game with a sword-clashing, pistol-brandishing, spell-slinging approach and get away with a high chaos gameplay (and yes, that was how you got the bad ending), and that was too far for me. In Thief, the game pretty much directly punishes you for doing it that way. It's a hell of a lot harder, it's more expensive, and it doesn't award you for it or really encourage it. If you play Thief the way you play Dishonored, you're gonna get your ass kicked pretty hard.
There were a ton of secrets, lots of hidden loot galore, plenty of secret paths and stashes, and it was a pretty damn good time. Even the recreation of the Cradle, while not as tense or scary, was gripping and spooky.
Thief got way more hate and criticism than it deserved, and I wish it had done better because I would have loved to have seen more DLC and even a sequel or two.