To me Material has always felt like it was designed by an algorithm. There's just no trace of any "soul", playfulness or overall "artistry". I know this isn't true and there's many talented artists and designers working in Google but that's just the way I've perceived everything done with Material so far. It doesn't feel like fun, it feels like something that just had to be done to stay with the times.

Another issue is Material's animations. I literally cringe every time I have to use Google Translate on my phone. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to have full OS on your phone done with Material. Those whole element animations are so distracting and they actually make the app feel slower. I know iOS has also a lot of animation but the difference is where it is being applied. Material design applies it to interactions with elements while iOS applies it to transitions. If I have to wait and see how the element I just interacted with animates, it seems unimportant but if animation is used to mask loading time like for example when transferring between app and homescreen on iOS, then it feels natural. If you want to animate interaction elements, it needs to be really, really fast animation just to let you know that yes, I got your tap/click.