Originally posted by SomethingCoolBro:

I've complained directly to Steam about the over-moderation in these forums. It's way too much. Someone needs to moderate the moderators.

The answer is no. Steam sub-forums are ran by the developers and occasionally global Valve mods will step in on moderation if said developers do nothing or abandon their forum. Unless the developers/moderators are breaking the general rules of Steam, they are in the clear to run their forums how they want.

It is kind of unreasonable to ask Valve to directly moderate tens of thousands of sub forums.

Originally posted by OGenglish:

Because if you look at past threads where it wasn't locked, the vast majority of comments were pointing out how slow development is and apparently they can't take the criticism.

The issue is people whip themselves into a frenzy if left alone to fester and rot on the same discussion issue forever. Like stagnant water. I just got here but I've seen this song and dance elsewhere on many games over the years.

Criticism is fine, but development has taken so long that some people (if left unchecked) will go beyond that. It's an escalating force of discontent that breeds toxicity as time passes. Either let it poison your entire audience (if you intend to abandon the game), or moderate it and avoid the community hurting itself.