The Rakatans were actually a pretty good fit for the themes of Star Wars as a whole. Since much of SW is based around contemporary western themes, it only suits them that a precursor race would be far less civilized from a western sense and resemble ancient empires like the Babylonians, Carthaginians, or the Aztecs. The whole story of the Rakatans fit the narrative of the Biblical Tower of Babel where a progenitor civilization created a great monument that eventually led to their destruction. In this case, the Star Forge was the apex of their empire, but it also corrupted them from within, causing them to lust after its power and fight over it, since it was a tool of the Dark Side that fed off the darkness and hatred of their species. It then led to them killing each other, leaving them vulnerable to a strike by the slave species who used a plague that killed most of them and left the survivors numb to the Force.
If anything, at least they aren't Mary Sues. They were powerful, sure, but unlike certain characters from the SW universe, the authors didn't turn them into creator's pets that were elevated as noble and perfect, and at least they had flaws that made them vulnerable. In this case, their barbarism and ego destroyed them. If they had their heads on straight, their Force-powered tech could have been the seed of an empire that could have lasted forever, but their own arrogance and vanity made that impossible. Which is, of course, another classic SW lesson on how vices like pride and vanity will bite you in the ass.
Everywhere I go online, I find only contempt, ire, and bloody tears regarding SWTOR and its accompanying novels, particularly Drew Karpyshyn's Revan.
Of course, a lot of these same people warned me that the Yuuzhan Vong were the worst antagonist force introduced to Star Wars, assured me that Timothy Zahn can do no wrong as an author, and declared that LOTF was the worst thing to be inflicted on humanity since the Nanking Massacre.
So I tend to take the "public wisdom" found within the EU readerbase with a healthy dose of salt.
If you're invested in the Revan character, you'll hate SWTOR's treatment of him, especially the Revan novel. But if you're not that invested (or you have your own headcannon on Revan that isn't what the SWTOR writers made) then SWTOR as a whole isn't so bad.
apples and oranges. old EU mainly came from books, which even by mainstream standards is considered more nerdy. meanwhile KOTOR was a videogame by a company at the height of it's popularity, so not only more known among SW fans but the general audience. KOTOR 2 could be considered even more beloved building on that.
along comes TOR trying to jump onto the WoW hypetrain back then (means even more normies), which among a myriad of other issues not limited to star wars, turns said beloved protagonist into a mid-level boss you kill for his pants, and karpyshyn retconning kotor 2 (as I've heard, never read it). TOR later "fixed" it apparently making revan a proper raid boss, but that was long after I quit and stopped following that wreck.
point is different people are pissed about different things, and the only thing they have in common is that they're pissed (justified or not, which is a whole other discussion).
It kind of is justified, considering they just took a beloved character (Revan) and killed him in the most asinine way possible. If that was what they were going to do, killing off Revan during the events of the Revan novel would have been better, provided that his death did something to weaken the Sith in the long run. That, or if they were going to have him in the game, have him be a questgiver for the Republic players and a recurring boss character for high-level Imperial players. At least show some respect to the character who is so loved by many.