I'm not sure it's a play test failure. If it were, you would think there would have been a burst of users and then nothing. It seems to me more like a market appeal failure. I didn't get the sense that anyone was intrigued by the story or characters, and the hero shooter as a genre has Overwatch, TF2, Deadlock and the bodies of Battleborne and others. They didn't showcase any stunning new mechanics in their intro, nor did they manage to make a funny or compelling story.
The marketing seemed to basically rely on "if they see 30s of gameplay, that will be compelling enough".
If we remember TF2, they launched with a bunch of really well conceptualized "Meet the character" videos which built humor and personality into the characters as well as taught some of the mechanics.
Overwatch launched a whole pile of interesting and very fresh player mechanics, as well as about triple the characters available with TF2.
Again, I can easily imagine they had players testing it. I'm not sure they had many people market testing.
The marketing seemed to basically rely on "if they see 30s of gameplay, that will be compelling enough".
If we remember TF2, they launched with a bunch of really well conceptualized "Meet the character" videos which built humor and personality into the characters as well as taught some of the mechanics.
Overwatch launched a whole pile of interesting and very fresh player mechanics, as well as about triple the characters available with TF2.
Again, I can easily imagine they had players testing it. I'm not sure they had many people market testing.