The article states that in a complete playthrough, he found exactly 2 fast travel crystals; in the second, he got one. those are definitely artificially limited to make sure someone drops some cash. if you read the article, you wouldn’t get downvoted man.
That doesn’t change the fact that you might just have a game where you get shafted and have to pay to get meaningful fast travel going. i’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case in dd1, and that they hid the MTX in the review copys they sent out and activated their garbage when they started selling it shows that they know that it’s not acceptable and that their reviews would have suffered quite a bit.
also, delivering a single player game as always online, Denuvo Antitamper AND Anti-Cheat (so you can’t circumvent the MTX-crap) simply doesn’t fly in a post-Baldurs Gate 3 Era.