Some constructive criticism: Your game wasn’t successful because it had a lot of technical failures and design failures, not because of the negative reviews. It’s very, VERY important for you to recognize that so you can improve upon it.
After reading your post, I checked out your youtube channel which lead me to someone doing a play-through of your game (located here in case you’re curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vherhuN06I).
First let’s start with what that youtube link is:
It’s a youtuber that does “let’s play / gameplay” of <insert game name>. The people who do these types of youtube videos get viewer based on how entertaining they are. A “huge” factor in how entertaining they are is how vocal they are and also how descriptive they are on their thoughts of the game they’re playing. Whether it’s a game that they are having fun playing … or if it’s a game that completely bored them out of their mind, they need to keep up their dialogue.
The reason I’m pointing this out: If you watch the video, he’s subconsciously critiquing your game and telling you what you did right and what you did wrong (or what needs improved). I highly suggest that you watch his video. I only watched the first video he did on it, but apparently he did at least 3 videos on your game. So there’s a lot of information there for you to analyze.
From the youtuber’s video that I watched:
(1) Your overall story line seemed interesting. It looks like a story based type game (I actually really enjoy those types of games).
(2) From what I saw, it seemed like there were too many pointless level scenes that didn’t add much to the storyline or the gameplay. No point in adding a level just to run down a hallway, have a 5 second cut-scene that added only a very small part to the storyline, load into another level that did the same thing. I would suggest putting as much storyline and gameplay as possible into individual levels. As you can see in the linked video the youtuber was starting to get annoyed with the loading scenes, not only because of the time needed to load … but also because very little was getting accomplished in each level.
(3) From the graphical standpoint, the game “looks” good. If you read the comments on that guy’s video you’ll see a lot of “How can a game this bad, look soo good”. This is actually a good thing, depending on how well you take criticism. You said your focal point is the art-side of development … so it’s good that people are praising the art-side of the game.
Now I understand why you’re upset that your game isn’t selling that well and it probably feels like you wasted a lot of time. It’s important to understand that even if you don’t sell another copy of your game, that you at least can add this to your portfolio and use it to possibly find a job in an actual studio (even if it’s just a small one). It’s a stepping stone that wouldn’t be there if you didn’t do this game. Most people never even get to release a game at all.
I also noticed on one of your youtube videos for the game that someone asked about the art in the game. You answered them saying that you got some from the market, but made most of the stuff yourself. They asked what exactly “you” made and you didn’t answer them back. You never know who you’re talking to on the net, that random Bob or Jane may just be a curious gamer … or they may be someone working on a game in need of help … or maybe they know someone who needs an art hire … or perhaps someone else looking for an art hire sees the comment. You should try to be more interactive (as that’s still a part of not only marketing yourself, but also presenting yourself to new opportunities that wouldn’t be there if you’re aren’t interactive.
All in all, keep fixing the game and working out the kinks for now. It has a lot of potential. As you push out fixes and updates, be sure to market those updates as well (via youtube or whatever).