It looks like a lot of the complaining is about how it's not like Patapon?

Most of it, but not all of it.

I played a little bit of the demo and was excited for a Patapon clone but it felt...off?

My main issues with it:

• Moving your own character does not really add anything to the game
• It's really easy for the music to sound off-beat by narrowly missing the timing
• The metronome was replaced by a fixed Guitar Hero-like note display
• There is too much going on at times, mostly due to the more complex art style
• The beat between enemies and yourself does not match, making it impossible to counter some attacks
• You cannot cancel the beat by failing on purpose; If you fail, you have to wait until you can input the next command

I really hope they can improve things but right now I don't really enjoy it.