That doesn't make sense to me. If you don't like something, don't pay attention to it. No publicity kills products. Bad publicity just draws attention, making sales, thus bringing in more of the same until the public finally gets tired of it.
It's like with the Transformers movies. I hated the second so much, I refused to see the third one despite it being more successful than the second. Now they're making a fourth one, which I won't see either as long as Bay is involved. All those people hating on those films probably all saw the third movie and will see the fourth movie just to gripe on how terrible the latest one is compared to the last one. What a waste of time and money, I rather spend money on things that are more likely to give me more bang for my buck rather than piss me off over how I got robbed.
All that attention grabbing noise should be for products you WANT to have, like that whole Wii RPG movement. I didn't care for that either like the DmC thing initially, but I heard about it. I knew about it. It got me interested momentarily and one day (once I get my Wii back) I might even buy them like Pandora's Tower (which i'm still interested in, I take forever to buy products I want). People are always going to be attracted to what's drawing lots of attention, whether it be a spectacle or a train wreck. So if the original intention is to get people to NOT buy the game, to NOT steer the series to a new slew of games similar to this...the fans are doing a really terrible job at it. And if it becomes a success, they'll announce another one and the whole "But WHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAIIIEE" argument is going to come up. Why? Because you shouted the loudest at it, that's why. Don't be surprised if that happens.
Journalists and Publications will always write what will get people to read their articles, so if it means posting the latest article about the Dev talking shit, Dante's hair, or a glowing review that isn't necessarily deserving...they're going to do it. Just to get people to visit the website and post to appease the advertisers, even if the resulting feedback is exceedingly negative. Controversy stirs more interest than an innocent announcement of "more of the same", sad but true.