Well, the developers could be at least partially at fault. Higher up positions may not be the only ones to blame, as the they may have delegated roles to the lower positions that could have included creative control.
We don't know whether the developers share any responsibility for what happened.
I also think that the artists could have easily created better designs for the characters, so why they made the designs so uninspired and unappealing really makes me reconsider if some of the development team may be partially to blame as well.
At least the game didn't seem to have bad gameplay bugs, but the game was around for less than two weeks and I didn't play it, so I can't sntirely confirm that. But the engineers and programmers probably arent to blame for the games failure. People didnt seem to complain about the game on a technical level.
Its to make you click on it to find out which studio it was. Clickbait.
Save you a Click: Grove Street Games