Frankly, because he doesn't know me from Adam.
That said, I have given a lot of thought to the artifact in question. The Staff of Moses presents a lot of unique story/gameplay obstacles, not least of which is the continuity of Raiders itself.
The Staff of Moses was stored in the Ark of the Convenant, along with the Tablets of Law brought down by Moses. When the Ark disappeared, supposedly the tablets and the staff were inside. If we leave that aside, we can examine the staff in the following way:
The staff itself is imbued with many unique powers. In the context of the game, I would imagine that it is tied to the 10 plagues of Egypt. (We need power both great AND terrible, so that it has some use as a weapon).
Of the 10 plagues, 6 of them were performed by Moses or Aaron - 3 each. The other 4 were performed by God without the use of the staff.
The 6 that were performed WITH the staff include:
Aarons Plagues:
1. Blood
2. Frogs
3. Lice
Moses Plagues:
1. Hail and Fire
2. Locusts
3. Darkness
(For those interested, the four plagues performed by God W/O the staff were Beasts, Plague, Boils, and Death)
So we've got a nice list of *nasty* powers to use for the game...this doesn't include the "parting of the waters", the "staff sprouting and producing almonds", "bringing water from rocks", or "changing into a serpent", but those probably wouldn't be all that useful into the context of a game.
That has to lead us to ask...how CAN these powers be useful in a game?
Hail and Fire may be useful...darkness could arguably be as well. But making rivers run as blood? Or a land filled with frogs?
It starts becoming difficult to integrate these themes into a game. A movie? Yes. A book? Sure. Gameplay may be difficult, though.
And all of this leaves aside the points I'm trying to make in the first place:
I'm NOT judging the game based on the screenshots. I'm not juding it on story, yet, either. The fact is, LA isn't really talking about story and that's reason enough to make me nervous.
But that's NOT the point - the point is, LA is breaking promies. They've been doing so for many, many years. That alone isn't the problem.
The problem is the arrogance with which they've done so. Jim Ward spoke many, MANY times about how missing release dates was unacceptable. He talked about how what they were doing with Indy was special, and that they wouldn't release an inferior product.
They have done exactly that - this is not a current-gen release. It's a last-gen release.
And they know they'll get away with it, because many fans will pay money for anything that says "Indiana Jones" on it.
That's all I'm saying. I'm surprised that so many people have a problem with it. This isn't about SOK anymore. It's about the contempt LA treats their customer base with.