Windows 8 sold as many copies in a Month as Windows 7 did in the first three months of Windows 7's release.
If you ask me the "scathing reviews" are by 'journalists' (and I use that term loosely) who are basically jumping on the bandwagon. A lot of them hadn't even tried win8 before offering their "review" of the OS! (How does that work?). Many of the rest of them focus on the Windows Store... and then get all their facts wrong anyway. Hooray journalistic integrity.