I agree. But Scala still does certain things different, so to a Java or python dev it _looks_ as if there is a lot of syntax. Just like Haskell looks strange when you look at it for the first time.
I don't think people object to the language syntax itself, but rather the unfamiliarity and randomness of language conventions. Haskell/Perl/K/Scalaz is full of line noise I can't be bothered to learn, for example
