I think Microsoft bought them because of Hellblade but they also stated, they want to provide freedom to devs. Devs wanted to work on BE, so we have BE...Yeah, that's why MS bought them.
Just my opinion.... I kinda like games as service so for me thats not something that bad.
They also wanted Hellblade 2, so it is real and they also wanted to work on Project Mara so we have that too