What reviews are you reading? I'm seeing complaints about control, cover mechanics, and the AI. These are complaints about the combat system, not that it involves stats. Remove the action combat and have it work like a traditional rpg like KOTOR, and then all these complaints would drop away and the reviews would focus on how many things Obsidian got right with the RPG side of the game.
This is not a topic about stat based combat vs player skill based combat. While both may have their places in different games, the bottom line is that the combat system is causing this game to get some very poor reviews from some of the largest review sites, and the text of the reviews makes it VERY clear that the combat is what is bringing the numbers down. In a perfect world, everything would be flawless in this game, and the reviewers would have had nothing to complain about, but given budget and time constraints, and the fact that Obsidian has tons of experience building stat based combat systems and very little action combat development experience, going with what they knew for combat would have been better for the company and for the game's sales.
The reviewers played the game the wrong way period. They don't need to change nothing of the combat mechanic because the game was intended to play that way. That is what make the game different to others.