Presentation, Player Expectations and Intent of Design

Do developers have to manage players expectations? Interpreting a narrative in our own way is one thing, but is judging a game based on our expectations valid? Or should we strive to see the intent besides design choices and criticize depending what developers trying to accomplish? (I am not talking about "the authorial intent" we learn outside of the game, I am talking about what we understand from the game itself)
The short answer to all of these questions is yes, but of course it's never that easy isn't it?

Super Meat Boy is a platformer with very clear goals and a simple presentation. There is an excuse plot to establish the player's goal: As the red block, try to reach the pink block. Now let's imagine three kind of theoretical criticism one might have about this game.

1. The game has a shallow narrative.
2. The game is too frustrating.
3. Some levels are not thoughtfully designed and end up unfair or boring.

Let's look at 1#. It's pretty clear that the story of the game isn't compelling. A person who categorically rejects any game without a strong plot would have a problem with that. However, is this criticism reflect anything about game's quality? I think not. Criticism is subjective, but it should be at least directed at something game promises, no one in good faith could say the game ever tried to have a narrative that doesn't serve gameplay. The solution here for the critic here is simply playing another game; otherwise it would be as unfair as to demand a violin piece from guitarist and badmouthing them when they reject to do so.
Now, let's look at 2#. Being difficult and even evoking some anger in the player's part is definitely an intended part of the experience game presents. And it succeeds at that for a lot of players. The expected player response is using your anger to fuel your enthusiasm for finishing the game. But what happens if someone is too frustrated to even continue and don't even want to play the game at all to avoid experiencing same emotions. The game failed to satisfy player but how much is the game's fault? Of course, the player expected the game's challenge was reasonable enough for them Most reviews talk about how difficult the game is yes, but a game shouldn't trust any third-party source, even its own advertising and present itself as best as it can. So, the solution once again seems that player should pick up another game.
But, is it? The player liked the premise of the game, just it's one particular quality failed them. But that particular quality happens to be the core of the game. Besides aestethic concerns, the game's only concern is to test your reflexes. So in the one hand, it's not really that different to ask developers to add more story in the game, on the other hand is making some things easier for some people really would be the worst thing ever? because unlike 1#, it would certainly improve the experience for a lot of people? I think, developer's decision either way is fair but player's criticism would be also equally fair.
And we come to the 3#. A game about challenging the player would obviously want that the players would enjoy the challenge. But here,  the criticism directly challenges the game's delivery of its premise, it wouldn't be wrong to say some who criticize the game this way, enjoys the premise itself. It cannot be simply handwaved as "play another game!", the player enjoyed the core experience at some level, wants the game to be better at delivering said experience. This is something a developer would certainly like the address, and especially said problem exist in many players it would point to a major issue in he game design.
Now it's easy to talk about when the game is as small and precise in what it demands and offers as Super Meat Boy. But things start to muddle when we go BIG...

When I read about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the things I had heard pleased me. "It's an open world RPG", they said, "it has good lore too." That's my thing, I thought, and eventually started to play the game. And the opening scene, I quite liked it. It really set me up as this epic adventure that delves into heavy politics and I expected a good story. And there is certainly a smell of good story. From the rare moments of good dialogue, to pieces of lore I have found in the books. I pursued that smell in Skyrim, one of my primary reasons that I played it so long, -369 hours says, Steam - I expected to reach and grasp every dangling piece of narrative eventually, the civil war, dragons, vampires, guild stories, Daedric lords...
In the end, it never came.. Way too many people talked about this at this point, besides a few select moments - a few moments in 100+ hours of a game - the story is pretty shallow.
But, why do we care so much? I mean, when we look at the game's design, we find out, everything in the game exists to enhance player's freedom and open world exploration. When we look at this way, Skyrim is mostly quite succesful, but almost everyone expected from the game more, especially on the narrative side. Where these expectations come from? I think they fall mainly into three groups

1. Built-up expectations from Elder Scrolls name
2. Genre expectations, marketing, reviews and general buzz
3. Getting duped by how the game presents itself

While I can relate to 1# after playing Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind for a while, I think it's overall unfair criticism. It is not wrong to getting upset at a series you so loved going in a direction you don't want, but a game should be valued its own merits. I will always prefer any Final Fantasy game as turn-based, but I cannot say Final Fantasy 15 is a terrible game solely because it didn't cater to my meta-expectations.
2# warrants criticism against Bethesda and gaming media as a general. Categorization of games and terminology about games in general is total mess, it's focused way too much on superficial and marketable aspects, it doesn't help that game publishers make things worse by buzzwords like "rpg mechanics" But none of this is game's fault either.
3# is an entirely another story. While Skyrim is very shallow narratively, it certainly doesn't act like that for quite a while, and you can see that just from the opening scene: You have to watch a hefty dialogue about people, places and events you don't even know, then you need to escape a dragon attack when you were going to lose your head! Everything sounds like you are starting an epic adventure with a complex narrative, but...
You can see how terrible this opening scene is. Not only how it fails to set up the core ideas of the game - as in you are literally starting a game about exploration in an obligatory cut scene -  you are made to believe the complete opposite! If only the game was more clear about it after that.
But it doesn't and this is where "the potential" part comes in, the game absolutely wants you to think it's grand and epic far more than it is. There is Civil War, it could be the most engaging thing ever, but it just serves as a backdrop and all you get from that huge quest is a mediocre sword and changing the uniform of the guards. There is a literal college for mages, they talk about it how you can study the very fabrics of the universe, but nope, you get a room and you can't even craft your own magic like other Elder Scrolls games, and the highest level magic ends up mostly disappointing. The game also constantly points at you that, you can be the leader of many organizations, expect you don't actually do anything as a leader. I can go on like this forever. the point is Skyrim, deliberately or accidentally sets up a lot of player expectations which it can't fulfill, and ends up getting received poorer at its own strengths as well.
Part of the inspiration for this article comes from my previous article, the receivement Persona 3 got made me ask the questions that I searched for an answer here. While I don't have very definitive answers - these are all very subjective stuff -, but at least I can say the developers has a responsibility to communicate their design goals and core ideas as well as they can. Some players might set different expectations for themselves, there is not much you do about that, and you can't just cater to all fan demands without any outlook from yourself either. However, if you want to show where really your game shines best as you can, you must be precise in your presentation as much as possible. Setting your scope small or carefully guiding your player can help, as you can see in the first level of Super Mario Bros. And as for us, especially people who aspire to be critics, we need to differentiate between criticising a game's merits and projecting our wishes into a game as much as possible.