No one hated Doom 3 until 2016 came out and the faggots that whine jerked off to the lighting effects in 3.
I think theres context in that, ON RELEASE, it had at least decent reception because id-tech, because lighting, because new doom game after almost a decade, ect, but it also was VERY clearly seen by many as "ok, this isn't REALLY that doomy". Plenty of mods try to remedy this by making it faster and more hectic combat. It wasn't liked FOR being a spoopy shooter, it was liked IN SPITE OF being a spoopy shooter. Nobody WANTED to hate it, regardless of the flaws
I also think back then many weren't terribly articulate or knowing about the "souls" of game, or its feeling, ect, they probably remembered dark levels and thought that, but yeah. I think ironically enough brutal doom was where they started having a fucking lightbulb, seeing the IMMENSE success off that. Many doomworld faggots deny this but in 2014 they formally endorsed it, and 2 years later they had the game which borrowed a ton of ideas from it. That to me makes it VERY obvious they took notes.

don't forget they were originally trying to ALSO hire croteam to make basically a modern military shooter like cod or arma or whatever with doom monsters, and it was ALSO scrapped and turned into Serious sam 3 BFE.

Remember this guy? Hes literally a left over asset of trying to make doom 4 and ID said "fuck it, throw it into your game as an apology for wasting your fucking time"
TLDR : it was recieved OK for finally being another game where you blast demons with shotguns, but everyone knew it was off. And they kept being OFF until they saw how brutal doom was a success