that sounds weak as fukk
Nah. On the harder levels you have to complete them or you are gonna die anyway. Without doing so you'll have a weak character with limited moves, and there is no way to replenish your health without getting them right. So even though they complete if you miss the prompts, it is essential for you to get them right if you want to finish the game.
IMO that's really weird. it just seems like they lost whatever direction they had trying to deal with the 'backlash'
It is a new concept and I can understand why people would say its weird. But if you pay attention to them and try to execute them perfectly, then there is some depth and a great sense of accomplishment. And there is a great meta-game of trying to set the enemies up for the most stylish and gruesome executions you can perform. If you just don't care and button mash through it, then the experience is very shallow, the more you put into the system the more you get out of it.
And no the combat system being that way has nothing to do with the backlash. The only thing they changed after the backlash was removing the large buttons above the enemies head and they said those were added just prior to e3.
The explanation behind the system is that it would be accessible for everybody, yet rewarding for those willing to put in the effort, and I think they succeeded at that. My wife could not play DR3, but she had a blast playing Ryse.