To be fair: I do think that a lot of people really don't get what Shenmue is about and a lot of criticism it receives is unjustified. But on the other hand not everyone who doesn't like Shenmue dislikes it because they didn't "get it". Many people dislike it because it's slow-paced and a lot of people also don't like the Asian setting.
Fine by me. Leave their opinion to them. Everybody's entitled to their own opinion and sometimes Shenmue fans do come of as pretentious wankers when they lecture people about having the "wrong" opinion. There's a difference between talking shit about Shenmue, like calling it a forklift-simulator for instance, or disliking it for valid reasons.