Praised to high heaven and with good reason imo. Aja won two Eisner Awards for his work on the book. One for "Best Artist" (interior work), the other for "Best Cover Artist".
Like all great comics the art is as much a part of the storytelling as the writing. Even the stand-in artist have been great, and the Annual was terrific imo.
I absolutely love the new Hawkeye book, and love Aja's art in it, but I can see how some people might not get along with it.
it's very stylized and I'm glad that Marvel is running more books that are completely allowed to have a personality like this.
but just as much, it's true that anything like that, is going to disagree with some people at the level where they aren't going to want to read it. which makes sense.
i really don't like when people say things like Aja, or Quitely or Allred suck tho, like trying to say any kid in high school can draw like that. then it crosses a line where sometimes it starts to bug me.
i never seen Aja talked like about that tho. one of the things, is it can come off kind of impenetrable to some people cuz there's not a lot of movement in how he does things. purposefully, of course. or maybe it's more true to say that he does incorporate a lot of movement, but your eyes aren't drawn to any entrance point. this can come off as sort of monotonous or give some people a feeling of looseness or messiness, i think.
i love him tho, just saying..
edit: also I agree, I loved the art on the annual too.