Taking this bait, I think the problem is that these features are doing multiple things, and almost all of them are bad in the name of “better” graphics (which is subjective)

• characters look worse, like AI slop filters were added over their faces and bodies
• creative vision of the people making the game is bastardized behind these “enhancements” altering the look and feel of the game.
• higher bar for entry for performance requirements and still getting poor performance if you do bite the bullet for a more expensive setup
• a lot of these games aren’t that good, don’t get me wrong a few are, but having to buy extra equipment and push your PC to get marginally better graphics to play an “okay” game isn’t gonna make people jump for joy.

You used half life 2 as an example, that was arguably one of the greater games out there at the time, tech and story wise, when it released. People bought better equipment because they wanted to, and even then, the game was still really good. Not so much with these new releases.

You can blame the complaints on people hating AI, they do. But it’s not like everyone who doesn’t like these games and their requirements is hating it just because of DLSS. The problem is people are complaining about performance along side other issues and DLSS is being presented as “the solution to performance issues” when it’s not even close.