Any newbie can hate a licensed game, but if you do a little thinking on the matter you come to realize that a better question is why are licensed games bad. The answer, as far as I've reasoned, comes down to there being a certain responsibility on behalf of the licenced game developers that are rarely acknowledged:
1. A licensed game carries with it the expectations of the fan that the licensed game will attempt to carry the spirit of what it's based upon. If you make an excellent virtual world predominantly featuring a functioning player economy with goods and services, then slap "Star Wars" on it, you're asking it to bomb, because Star Wars was not an epic movie about moisture farming. We know this now because it actually happened [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies]. Consequently, those who crave freedom of creative concept should stay far away from licensed games: if your goal is to please the players of that license, your game is primarily there to make the license look good.
2. There's always the temptation on behalf of the developers to simply make the game, even if it's crappy, and release it because they know tens of thousands of twits will buy it anyway because they liked the license in which it was based on. The sad thing is this logic works - Star Wars shovelware is a gold mine. However, it only works partway in that a procession of bad games hurts the original license you're using to the point where you killed the Goose that lays the golden eggs. Furthermore, a good licensed game will likely sell a bit more than a bad licensed game, and set players up to purchase new ones.
It's the constant deluge of licensed games that can do neither #1 or #2 that create a cloud of kneejerk "I hate licensed game" reactions in the ignorant populace you were trying to sell to in the first place. Spiderman 2 is the rare example of the game that gets it right.