Ummm... No. It's not 'idiots'. Making a woman with a prosthetic arm one of the main characters is... well... About as blatant as you can get for SJW politics; especially with the responses give. But, more to the point, the thing that really killed it was the responses and attitudes.
As someone else pointed out; had the devs focused on things like what the gameplay will be like, what classes and options will be around, and so-forth they probably could have gotten away with it. However they decided to hype up the features which, not only would have 0 impact on people who actually wanted to play the game (since, ya know, no idea of the quality), but then slam anyone who didn't like their choices, treat them like trash, then give the dumb-ass 'if you don't like it don't buy it' line.
Even if every bit of the complaining of the SJW's was stupid and wrong, even if the number of people who would have not bought the game because of those things numbered less than two hundred, and even if the game itself was wonderful, the sheer mishandling of the PR would cause a drastic pain to the sales.
It doesn't help that it's EA whom are notiorious both for SJW antics (see: ME:A) and atrocious customer service (See: Star Wars) which is going to give DICE an even harder challenge. They needed all hands on deck to sale safe into port; but some of their people decided a political statement was more important, and we're now waiting to see if it makes it through despite it, or to see how epic a wreck it will make.
Yeah, it's idiots. I know the game is supposed to feature women and I don't care. The bionic arm or the dev comments, all news to me. Why would I be seeking this info? I know what to expect from BF. I'm quite certain the SJW comments were just as pathetic as anything the devs could write. The whole lot of them belong tossed under a bus. All I'm concerned with is gameplay.