Why was everyone jerking themselves to this?

>Oxenfree
That's even worse.

This. Play Night in the Woods.

Them starting off in the exit cube wasn't meant to convey, "we aren't barbarians tee hee." Most likely it was a twist put in by the writers for the sake of demoralizing/stressing out the characters.
Or if you look to the prequel for some sort of explanation, the organization that put them in there are a bunch of sadistic bastards that did it for no good reason.

I liked it until the stupid supernatural ending

The issue I see is that the ending was natural, too natural. Fiction isn't reality and while it should try to imitate it because it's the best form of representation, it shouldn't try to BE reality, because more often than not reality is boring.
I don't think the game is bad or poorly written, but it indeed made me feel like it was a waste of time. The guy's development and depression felt a bit rushed and the "mistery" that ended up not being one well, leaves you at that: "Oh, so it was just that".

I think the ending could have been a lot better but it didn't ruin the game for me. Completely understand why someone would feel otherwise, though.

At least this game really had a mystery and different endings.

It was the dumbest "twist" there was.

Because it's actually a pretty good game people have criticized for all the wrong reasons and thought it was something that it never intended to be. I for one absolutely loved the shit out of the game and want to replay it soon.