I actually like Tiger Mask, just not as much as the other two final evolutions. The starter pokemon I am not a fan of tend to be "ugly" or "rotund" - Feraligtr, Emboar, and Swampert are the worst three in that respect. Tiger-Mask on the other hand is masculine, but certainly not rotund or ugly. Rather, it reminds me of the sinister, handsome, and charasmatic Lysandre.
That being said, Poppmaid is a dream come true. And Robbinhoot is just flat-out amazing...somehow it still ends up being my least favorite of THIS generation, but I like litten3 more than the majority of fire starters. I'm really having a hard time seeing why there are some people who dislike ALL of them. It feel like these are more varied, distinguishable, and unique as starter final evolutions. No offense to Charizard, since he is in my top 10 final starters, but its design isn't innovative...it's rather simple. If a pokemon similar to charizard were released in this generation, would it get just as much, if not more criticism? At a certain point, it seems like people just are not going to be pleased either way.
If I had to have three starters on my team, and they all had to be from the same region, it would easily be this generation as my choice. The Brain/Beauty/Brawn variety seems emblematic of the reason why we have starters -- variety of choice. I love Poppmaid, but if they were all feminine...I would be disappointed, because of the uniformity. Likewise, it seems like other generations have starter trios that are somewhat generic, boring, and EXPECTED.
Many of the people who have expressed dislike for these pokemon seem to want bigger, badass, awesome, androgenous/masculine versions of the first stage pokemon-- for all of the starters. That is kind of how gen 1 and gen 4 were in that you could describe all of the final evolutions as being all of those traits...which is just boring and predictable.
