I'm assuming you're talking about God Of War.....and yes it was tough but not unpassable. I don't know why people would complain about the difficulty and blame it on lack of playtesting though. Are today's gamers unwilling to have some challenge in their games? I for one felt the GoW series is almost excellent.
The only thing about the series that i'm unhappy about is the uselessness of the upgrades to the Chains of Olympus. The combos are flashy at best but they take too long to execute, cannot be cancelled (to dodge enemy attacks mid combo) and most of the later enemies block your attacks making it useless. I just use the normal square square triangle or triangle triangle square combos, and find them more effective.