The thing is, once the userbase dies the game is non-playable. Maybe they'll update it so you can do stuff without the whole online bit, but I doubt it.
I regularly play games like SMB3 or LTTP, in my opinion masterpieces of gaming which still hold up today. Imagine being a kid today and wanting to replay a game from your childhood later in life. Too bad son, without the live services the game simply isn't playable.
So I feel the argument can be made for live services being an addition to the game and not the core mechanic.
And then they pissed off their entire userbase with the PSN requirement. Incidentally AFAIK you still can't buy the game in countries that don't have PSN accounts available. So the fuckery probably isn't over.
It's pretty fantastic for generating hype. Sure gamers can commiserate with each other over particularly hard campaign levels in offline campaigns, but malevalon creek was a whole wave of memes and other engagement.
It's just such a shame Sony had to shit it all up, and that the devs keep pumping out monthly warbonds instead of fixing and balancing what we already have first. I haven't tried polar patriots yet but the reviews so far are not great. Meanwhile they keep nerfing good weapons.