Well, people hate the game because its not what they were expecting from it. A lot of people didn't exactly like the changes; mainly the battle system and the world being pretty linear.
As for Hope, I have no idea. I thought that out of all the characters, he was the best one. Had excellent character development, was good in the medic/ravenger roles, the only negative point would be that even in some CGI scenes, he looks like a girl. Seriously, I think people only hate Hope because he whines a lot. But that made logical sense to me. He is the youngest member of the party at only 14 or so. Plus, he isn't exactly the most expressive teen to begin with. I think people just forget that he's a kid. Not some older teen going into an adult, a kid. Again, I feel like he just had the best character development. NEVER understood the hate.
Course, maybe people just project the hate for the game onto the most easily hated character they could see first, which was Hope. Sad, because he does get better later on.
Still, good game and very good character in my opinion.