As it turned out, AiME creatures are generally way way tougher on multiple levels than their 5e equivalents. For example even the plain wolf is something to be terrified of. But that wasn't apparent when AiME first came out…
That was something that threw me the more I dug into Aime. Orcs are seriously tough.
Even in the books they would get one shotted. But 1st level characters would have a very hard time of it in anything resembling an even fight.
For me AiME adapted a lot of the right ideas. (How the world was represented in the PC cultures was on point.) But was a bit too wedded to the 5e zero to hero paradigm.
You can tune d20 for a shallower power curve to have competent characters at first level, and go to level 20 without becoming superhero’s. They went a bit too copy and paste from 5e for may taste.
I chalk it up to differing expectations as my preferences are not the same as the normal 5e D&D audience.