"Anime" doesn't fucking mean anything other than animated. The Western implications of "anime" can mean a thousand different things due to the huge breadth of Japanese influenced art across all visual mediums.
My issue isn't that it's "hur hurr animeee", it's that it aesthetically so far has nothing in common with Xenoblade. Xenoblade was technically dated but had for most part a very coherent, cohesive artistic direction in the use of tones, colours, styles, and proportions for its characters, creatures, vistas, setpieces, and world. Xenoblade Chronicles X adopted its own style, and fair enough because change is fine, and I didn't like that.
This looks nothing like Xenoblade at all except maybe hints of scope in the environment. Obvious there's a huge draw in how the game plays since ultimately that's what drew me to Xenoblade in the first place, but when I'm playing a narrative driven, character heavy video game it's not in the least bit unreasonable to wish to feel some kind of interest and investment in the advertised cast. It's ludicrous to think that in a game innevitably loaded with dialogue and characterisation that these things don't matter at all.
In the same way that I've been turned away from countless games from all over the world because they're narrative/character driven and I've been aggressively put off by the chosen art and design style, so too am I feeling this for Xenoblade 2. Obviously I'm going to keep my mind open but the content shown so far looks intensely unappealing to me. Tales also looks the same. I'm actively deterred by the chosen art direction, and mentally automatically put up blocks of disinterest in wanting to engage with the cast and their adventure.
Xenoblade might have had low poly, low texture resolution characters but the art was on point. The dialogue was fantastic too, as was the dub. Xenoblade has such great grounded sci-fi fantasy direction to almost everything; the right amount of whimsical adventure with a sense of believability and seriousness.
If this wasn't branded Xenoblade 2 I wouldn't recognise it as Xenoblade at all. And I don't think it's unfair to voice that disappointment.