My recollection is that the negative reactions to Return mostly seem to come from the camp of "MI is a proper pirating adventure with some funny jokes in it", which you can kind of hazily reinterpret the first game as, and definitely Curse can be slotted into that. Like, there's a whole manosphere-they-ruined-my-heroes element going on with that interpretation, where Guybrush has experienced "Kirk Drift" and turned into a badass womanizer who can defeat LeChuck like some kind of cunning JoJo character.
But really, Ron Gilbert always wanted it to be critical and at least a bit deconstructive of all the pirate tropes: Guybrush never gets taken seriously as a pirate, the way in which he pirates is bizarre and unglamorous, and the dialogue follows a sort of knowing "NPC normalizes any choice the PC makes" railroading back into the puzzle gameplay. Gilbert just got more clear about doing that in the sequels, and I think Return is a great capstone to that.
But really, Ron Gilbert always wanted it to be critical and at least a bit deconstructive of all the pirate tropes: Guybrush never gets taken seriously as a pirate, the way in which he pirates is bizarre and unglamorous, and the dialogue follows a sort of knowing "NPC normalizes any choice the PC makes" railroading back into the puzzle gameplay. Gilbert just got more clear about doing that in the sequels, and I think Return is a great capstone to that.