Dungeons and Dragons

As someone who's first TTRPG was 4e: people just like to complain. 5e is a perfectly fun game, as is 3rd, 3.5, PF, or PF2e

The real issue I noticed is that people tend to expect D&D to be the "best " system for THEIR game. And D&D (and by extension Pathfinder) have never been the "best" system at anything besides BEING D&D and Pathfinder.

I look at it as the traditional system. D&D has a ton of old, basically unusable rules that simply exist because... We expect them to exist. We remember these rules existing in old editions so they basically HAVE to exist in the new edition. And this expectation has led to a system that is just really good at emulating itself and not much else.

People who expect D&D to be the best for their horror game, or their survival game, or their political game often complain because that's not what it's for. People who expect D&D to be the best for their old 1st edition game complain because it's that's not what it's for.

It's just meant to LOOK like the old edition.

You'll definitely enjoy playing 5e! A good group of friends and a solid starting adventure will get everyone rolled back into the swing of things quickly.