"After more than five years in development, gorgeous-looking hole-based puzzler Donut County is out today. It’s definitely not everything I had hoped for"

RPS:

here it just grates for me. But on the larger scale, I don’t get it, I don’t understand why this group of unintroduced creatures are sneering at each other in this game at all, and I’m absolutely certain none of it was necessary. I don’t think any narrative justification for the hole was needed, and while it eventually reaches a ludicrous finale that makes its own sort of sense, I found myself wishing they’d all be quiet so I could get on with playing the game.

...

I really wanted to love this. Since 2013 I’ve been quietly enamoured with the concept.

Hole.io was dismissed as a shameless clone when it came out. Kotaku said:

There isn’t much an indie developer can do when another company publishes a skeleton of their game.

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When it’s released this year, Donut County will rely on its charm to lure in players. It’s not a free charm, but it’s one Esposito has been pouring himself into for half a decade. The fact that a company like Voodoo can take part of what makes his game special, push it out for free, advertise it massively, and earn the coveted number one spot on the iOS store, he says, is “discouraging.”

Variety said :

Goldman Sachs-Backed Cloner Uses War Chest, Ad Buys to Overshadow Original Games

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“Game cloning” is a euphemism. It’s what you say in polite company when you don’t want to outright accuse someone of stealing your game idea and rushing a slipshod version to market. It’s hard to be genteel about the behavior though, when the culprit touts a massive influx of cash from a Wall Street investment bank.

Hole.io doesn't have a review at Metacritic.

But somewhere along the line, free games on the iOS store became good. Hole.io is really fun and feels nothing like Donut County.