Comment by spartanatreyu

Homeworld 3 received a terrible rating because its story and delivery was a massive departure to what users wanted, not because of it's gameplay or tech.

It would have been chosen for the same reason ashes of the singularity was chosen as a benchmark for so long: because it looks good, it comes with a benchmark, and it's really good at stressing out a particular part of the computer (for AoS: async rendenring, for HW3: CPU).