I think I might be weirdly well-positioned to answer this. Of all my friends who play a video game on a nightly basis, many of them have at least spent a couple hours in Qud, and exactly one of them has spent any time in Cogmind. I, also, have spent a good amount of time with Qud but have not touched Cogmind, so in my ignorance I am probably exactly the kind of person who is responsible for Qud having 3x the number of reviews.
I'm sure that Cogmind is an incredible game, I've heard only good things, but here's my stab at why this is the case.
Things that got me and others to pick Qud up:
- Immediately interesting narrative conceit.
- Strong sense that that narrative conceit actually comes up in interesting ways in the course of gameplay—cool faction stuff, cool procgen storytelling, narratively-meaningful consequences for player actions.
- Mutations seem both conceptually cool and like they produce fun, interesting gameplay situations.
- Character generation seemed extremely fun and compelling.
- Very nice, chill, attractive aesthetic.
- I saw screenshots and stories about the game that piqued my interest.
Things that probably worked against Cogmind for myself and others:
- No real sense of what it's about. I think you're a robot in a robot dungeon? Nothing to really sink my teeth in there.
- I know that the game involves, like, taking parts from enemies and equipping them yourself. That sounds very fun in terms of gameplay, but conceptually, narratively, it isn't really as compelling as e.g. Qud's mutation wackiness, or the time travel stuff, or evil twin stuff, or befriending the scion of a kingdom of snails or whatever. Swapping my gun for someone else's doesn't really get my imagination racing on its own.
- The aesthetic looks 'cool' but kind of harsh and alienating in a way that doesn't make me want to spend time with the game.
- I have had zero idea what is going on in every Cogmind screenshot I've seen.
- This is a big one and maybe a hard one to communicate: Among all the people I know, only one person is really invested in 'roguelikes' as a genre. Like, that one person will pick up a game solely because it is a roguelike. For the rest of us, I think there are a lot of roguelikes that we like, but the mere fact of something being a roguelike isn't inherently a value-add for us. Accordingly, even though I've heard a few times that Cogmind works as a new take on the genre, that isn't really a strong sell for me—I'm not invested in 'the roguelike genre', I just want to play a game that I'll enjoy. The degree to which a game breaks from the roguelike mold isn't a consideration for me as much as the stuff I talk about above.
Again, I'm sure Cogmind is incredible, I've heard only good things, I'm sure that I'll pick it up someday when I'm in the mood and have an absolute blast. As someone who has one toe dipped into Roguelike World, though, Qud has found a kind of breakout name recognition among people I know in a way that not many other contemporary roguelikes have, I think.