The only thing I can think about this is that you start to believe that these 'critics' have never heard of dramatic irony (for those who read this and really doesn't know what dramatic irony is, it is where as the auidience or the reader we know more than the characters do.) while this is usually done in drama it works the same with storys. You can create better tension if you know something that the characters haven't realised for whatever reason and then do something.

A good example of this is in Clockwork Angel by Clarissa Clare. I wont say anything about what happens howver throughout the book we as the reader and the characters are fed this story about who certain characters are actually. When we find out however a few of the characters are there with us, the others find out seperatly straight after so we see a good section staright away where some characters don't know about this and argue about them with this other character. They find out then so we don't feel this feeling of frustration.

This shows that there are effective ways to implement this as a good language technique but it has to be done correctly and precisely/