People who were expecting it to be anything like the Terminator 2 (which btw was a classic) are ranting about the movie sucking. The movie will get good ratings because it was a good movie.
I don't have anything against Bale, but he wasn't the one who made the Dark Knight a great movie. It was Nolan and a great performance from Ledger.. I went in seeing this movie thinking that Bale was an arrogant tool for making the Writers make John Connor a lead character (they had planned to make him a very minor character, despite previous Terminators), BUT it wasn't that bad. I'd say Bale made it quite enjoyable.
It wasn't that great, I was expecting more out of it. And I'm sure with the ending, there is going to be another movie.