I think most people dislike of Leatherface (I mean, in addition of being a filthy guest character taking the resources and production time of a real MK character) is that he's just a psycho with a chainsaw.
Jason or Freddy at least had super natural abilities and were almost impossible to take down, Alien and Predator aren't even from earth.
Leatherface is a mentally challenged man manipulated by his own family into a killing spree. Give Jarek or Kobra a chainsaw and they can do anything Leatherface can.
When I saw his reveal attacking Ermac I could only think about how quickly would Ermac destroy him if the trailer really respected each character's abilities.
Pretty much this. Also the fact that a ton of people didn't really want more guests -- and if they did, they wanted to see characters like Spawn. I mean seriously, how many people do you know of that was really wanting Leatherface? There might have been some, but not many at all. I've seen more requests for Ash Williams and Pinhead.
For me, I also hate how bland/boring the character is. A lot of people try to defend him and say "How is a psychopathic, cannibal, chainsaw-wielding man
boring?"
Come on, he's more boring than like 99% of characters in this game. This game let's you play as cryomancer ninjas, sorcerers, a half-man-half-dragon with fours arms, aliens, etc. Even the "normal" characters like Johnny Cage, Jax, and the others have powers, unique abilities, and/or has been apart of the series for a long time. Even the more boring characters like Jacqui at least have personality and dialogue, but they also have (and deserve) their own place in the game's story.
Leatherface has no dialogue, no unique abilities/powers, no personality, has a boring design, and from what we've seen from the trailers he even looks somewhat awkward to see moving around (kinda stiff and has exaggerated attacks that just look weird for him to do -- take his X-Ray as an example). It's a shame to see NetherRealm Studios/Warner Bros. put him in over some of the other characters that where more requested, made more sense, and also deserved to be in. Characters like Fujin (I don't care if you personally don't like Fujin. He's an classic MK character, deserved a place in this game, and is the #1 most requested character).
It just feels like Leatherface is in to drum-up hype across the casual fanbase and to promote the new
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. I guess it's a smart business decision, but I don't think "smart business decisions" are what you need to do when trying to make a game the absolute best it can be -- or at least when you start over-doing them. Obviously it's important to actually make money since it's your job, but like I said, it get's bad when you start over doing them. Because you end up with multiple season passes that doesn't even include everything in that season, characters as pre-order bonuses, pre-order bonuses for pre-ordering season passes, microtransactions, $20 quick unlocks that doesn't even unlock everything in the game, way more guest characters/cross-promoting than the game needs, poor PC ports, bad communication with your fanbase, ignoring important subjects to damage control, and even sometimes flat-out lying to your fanbase just to make more money. Oh wait, this is Warner Bros. we are talking about here -- that's exactly what they want AND did.