Who is "they"?
The Mexica of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan? Or their sacrifices specifically? Either way the answer is "No, they are not as bad as people make them out to be" but by how much differs
As an overall society, they're not particularly different from other Ancient or Medieval societies, especially other Mesoamerican ones. As seen in webm related (tho Moctezuma II should have Xiuhuitzolli, not a Quetzal headdress), most people eat meals with family, worked in farms or workshops, visited markets, and and bet on games, (see also desuarchive.org/his/thread/7617096/#7619771). Parents compared their children (who attended schools) to precious jewels and feathers, both in their value and fragility/need to be protected. You had merchants, artists, diplomats, doctors etc. There was a formal judicial system with courts and judges, aqueducts, bathes, and toilets. Nobles valued poetry, public speaking and botany, with lavish palace gardens etc. Sacrifice and cannibalism was merely one (thoan important) part of their religion, which in turn was just one aspect of their society
On a day to day basis most people were not thinking about or interacting with sacrifices, even priests were doing them more on a monthly (tho their months weren't quite the same as ours) then daily basis, and excavations suggest sacrifices were primarily a thing in city-states and capitals of kingdoms, less so in the towns and villages around them as dependences
Mexica rule over other states within the "Aztec Empire" was also pretty loose: Cortes got most of the allies he did against them not because of resentment towards the Mexica, but because they usually left existing kings in power and customs/laws in place, so subject states retained their own identity, agency, and ambitions, enabling opportunistic side switching or secession. Even places which repeatedly attempted to secede also weren't necessarily sacked/razed, which they did do sometimes but not particularly often in wars
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