Varus' new lore is extremely convoluted, and a callously bad re-do
Varus old lore was pretty simple and straight forward, and that was a good thing. It was a recognizable, aspirational, thematically compelling and a well executed, popular character archetype. VERY popular, even. The character on the screen clearly represented what he was and what you WANTED to play when you picked him.
This new character, while the lore was told skillfully and all, is immediately confusing. The story no longer has a straightforward connection to the in-game character. While reading it's confusing enough to follow what was going on, but nearly impossible to get one's head around what to feel about the pesudo-character you end up with, from a trivial story about characters you feel nothing for and know little about.
Apparently you are now playing as a the fleshy specter steered by some demonic stranger. Somehow managing being the OPPOSITE of what he was in every way. Two more disembodied strangers also replaced Varus, a gay couple acting as the demon's conscience, or something similarly dumb. Not only is Varus unrecognizable, he is THREE characters in an extremely convoluted and confusing fusion. This three-way amalgamation is not a very approachable nor popular trope, I imagine.
No one ever aspired to be anything like this pesudo-Varus.
This is not something that reflect how old Varus was appreciated, frankly. It only gives shallow lip-service to old elements of his lore. This was clearly being designed from the start to tear down the old and force a new pre-conceived agenda, bizarre variety for variety's sake. Just because the old Varus was a familiar trope doesn't mean it was bad and had to be trashed. His story was very resonant.
You probably claim to have changed the story so "his arc isn't finished like before", but even you can't seriously claim a story revolving around the tension between completing his vengeance or finding redemption was somehow "IMPOSSIBLE to write!"
And this new strange character is entirely pigeon-holed to a one-track "find-the-darkin" storyline with no meaningful relationships with the world around him, him being some asocial demon now and all. I mean forget interacting with other Ionians now, despite being an unique but iconic Ionian character since release...
I am almost never disappointed in the lore, but this was just such a mess and callous pandering to some confused ideals, it was baffling to see. This is something you should have spared us being force-fed, or should have tacked onto some new champion if anything, rather than a formerly beloved character like Varus.
