Not by AMD, but by the tech circles and the fanbase. Expectations were certainly running high. People were calling this the Nvidia killer, and even the review is titled "beating NVIDIA"... except that on practice, looks like it is unable to conclusively beat 2022's RTX 4080, averaging -5% in raster and -20% in RT as per this very review (of what is arguably the most advanced model of 9070 XT we'll receive). These -5% seem to be after the games which are outliers, there were great gains in Cyberpunk 2077 with RT off, and the historically AMD friendly games seem to continue that trend (such as Call of Duty).
I do think it's a solid product with a far larger list of things to like than to dislike, but anyone calling this an Nvidia killer definitely hit their head somewhere. If the market situation wasn't so crazy, with the 50 series launch being completely botched, without any stock whatsoever, preorders from January going unfulfilled, 10+ week lead times, scalped prices on any few units that do show up for sale, and lukewarm progress by the competition (5090 aside, the 50 series barely even moves the needle in the overall level of performance made available stackwide), and if Navi 31 itself scaled better than it does, this card wouldn't look even half as good as it does.
Personally open to buying big UDNA once that's made available, this generation proves that AMD's still got it. Hopefully the suits will beat it and let their engineers work. Suits are what ruin AMD.