A major focus, yes. But in my opinion, humans did not have “exactly the same amount of focus” as orcs, who not only served as the face of the Horde but were almost the sole focus of the entire 5.3 patch, no matter what faction you played.
“I didn’t like this orc character’s writing” can absolutely contribute to orc fatigue. And to be fair, I have similar issues with the writing surrounding Illidan in Legion, which also contributes to my distaste for the attention that night elves get.
If you’re asking for objective, irrefutable problems with the Elemental Bonds quest chain, I can’t give them. All I’ve got is my own opinion, and my anecdotal statement that I believe a lot of other people reacted poorly to that quest chain.
For me, some of the issues are:
- It came out of nowhere. As someone who didn’t play a goblin character or read the Shattering or the Twilight of the Aspects, my only exposure to her was as a one-time quest NPC who flew me into Deepholm from the Maelstrom. That’s it. When I next encountered her, suddenly she and Thrall were deeply in love with each other and I get to experience an entire quest chain about her exploring the depths of her relationship with him. At the time, all I could think was “who are you and when did this happen.” I found it abrupt and jarring.
- Contrivance. For me, the entire premise of the quest was utterly ridiculous. I’d compare it to the ‘redemption’ of Sylvanas when the two halves of her soul were united. Rather than explore the emotional struggle of Thrall in a natural way or subject Thrall to great peril in a more traditional manner, they invented some sort of convoluted soul division magic that could be undone if he confronted his personal trauma in the form of various elemental trials.
- Isolated narrative. The entire quest chain revolves around Thrall, Aggra and the relationship between them. It feels disconnected from everything else. It isn’t about saving Thrall because of the greater part that he has to play, or because of any connection to anything else in that patch. Instead, the quest chain is about Aggra trying to save Thrall because she loves him, seemingly out of nowhere if you haven’t read the books. It has absolutely no bearing of the rest of Cataclysm’s narrative and the addition of this quest chain adds nothing to it, in my opinion.
- Awfully written dialogue. Personally, I found the way that Thrall’s different emotions were represented and how he came to terms with them to be “a little cringe,” as you put it. All of it felt very hammy and forced to me, needlessly melodramatic and full of heavy-handed symbolism. The voice acting didn’t work for me either, as a lot of Thrall’s dialogue felt very over-acted and over the top, while Aggra’s dialogue struck me as very stiff and wooden. It was an excruciating experience, at least for me.
You’re welcome to disagree with any and all of these points, they’re just my personal opinion and my personal experience of the Elemental Bonds quest chain. I’m not stating any of the above as factual, it’s just my feelings about that part of Cataclysm.