I think my friends call it a simple engine because you apparently don't need to write anything, like if you are making a game in Java, for example, you need to write all the program. But I think that similar case occurs in Construct2, but in another way, that is with the Event Sheet (I THINK).
But yeah, they see "No programming needed" and they think "Oh, a bad engine".
For example, I was thinking the same but the only difference in me is that I tryed to do a game, and I've seen all Construct2 possibilities.
So, as I said, I will continue using Construct2.