I think Roberta was right in a lot of ways, particularly about evolving the genre, just that she got the balance wrong in MOE. It wasn't just a KQ game with combat, it was a combat game that used KQ names and a few faces. Combat was SUCH a large part of the game, and on top of that, it wasn't done very well--just endless clicking, no real rhyme or reason to the combat system. The negative reviews of the game didn't necessarily focus on the fact that it had combat, it was that it had combat that was done very badly. It also had a few very subpar platforming sections, which were totally out of left field. In fact, the traditional adventure elements were downplayed SO much, that it didn't seem like an adventure game at all, or at least, not one that even vaguely resembled anything else in the genre. It also had some glaring technical faults, like atrociously long load times, for one. The best part of the game was really just exploring each area, and it was a game that looked darn good for its time, especially if you had all the right hardware to run it at full settings.
It's worth noting that I really liked MOE when I first got it and played through it when it came out. But I could tell how different it was, and looking back, I recognize why a lot of people don't like it. Personally, I wish I could play it again, but unfortunately, it just doesn't want to work on modern computers. Also, you lose a LOT of the visual flair if you run it in Direct3D, which is the only option nowadays.