Nah, everyone loves Gene! It's probably because Gene's such a big blustering caricature of a character they don't realise how much depth of acting goes into it, whereas everyone can see John Simm acting with the angst and the confusion and the loss, if that makes sense? It's the same way that dramatic performances are always rated much higher than comedic performances, even though they both take as much skill as an actor, just in different ways.