Next to Kamijou, Hitomi is easily the most hated character in the series, mostly because of her little part in the chain of events that caused two characters to die. But how much of that disdain is really deserved?

For the most part, Hitomi hate comes from shipping. As feminine characters are often regarded as inferior to more tomboyish characters, having one of each competing for the same love interest is never going to end well.

The big question is, was what Hitomi did acceptable? To be honest I'm more upset with the writers for not giving us any indication it was coming. It felt really contrived to have this come up at the absolute worst moment for Sayaka, this being the one thing that would hurt the most. While I would say it was pretty crappy of her as a friend to pop up and say "You need to face your feelings within 24 hours or I'll make my move." But at least she didn't sneak behind Sayaka's back and go after the trash Sayaka was sniffing.

The PSP games do some good and bad for her. On the bad side, Hitomi can behave rather nasty as far as I've seen when she and Sayaka get into an outright confrontation over him. Still not as badly as they handled Kamijou though...

The slot machines don't do her justice either.

On the plus side, the PSP game gave the fans a new ship. Homura & Hitomi. After losing Kamijou to Sayaka, it ends up being Homura of all people who comforts Hitomi. This results in the latter becoming quite attached to the former, to the point that the megucas try to have a strategy meeting but can't because Homura is unable to get Hitomi to leave.

Ship is canon. Though considering this franchise is very blatant and pandering about its shipping, that's to be expected.

I like Hitomi. She's cute and lady-like. 

I think she went the right way about it. I've always been against catty backstabbing love interest-stealing BFFs in my fiction (and IRL) but I think her "hey girl, i know you want this dude but I want it too so get ur sh*t together or I'm gettin it" terms is a nice way to do it. - Hitomi can't help who she falls for and you can't just stop your attraction if you never know how the other person will respond. 

In the back of my head when I orginally watched PMMM I thought "oh what if this is all some elaborate plan for Hitomi to rev Sayaka up and get off the sidelines" - Cuz we never know what Hitomi and Kamijou are talking about on that bench.

but that didn't happen. oh well

I honestly never cared about Hitomi either way... But I do have to wonder if part of the reason she gets hate is because of the comment she made towards Madoka and Sayaka in the beginning of the series... When she thought they were in a secret relationship, she made a comment that they can't be dating because they're both girls, and "that's forbidden love". I've seen people on Tumblr call her homophobic for that, so I do wonder if that contributes to the fandom's overall dislike of her. I honestly don't think it was homophobic... I think that line was actually intended to be a joke. But some people didn't see it that way.

Hitomi is not a bad character. She just suffered from a lack of development and being a plot device :P

My interpretation of her is a mixture of the anime, the manga and the PSP game. In the Wraith Arc, it's shown that she's desperately trying to find out what happened to Sayaka and goes to Kyoko about it. Sayaka is one of her most precious friends, and due to the laws of Madoka, she no longer remembers her other best friend and is truly alone. Plus, she doesn't have the patience it takes to tame Kyousuke's heart and feels annoyed that he's always choosing his violin over her.

In the PSP game, she does duel with Sayaka in the bonus route but after receiving one hard slap from her, Hitomi quickly backed off, encouraging her to confess her feelings. But then again, in another route, she sees Sayaka as a Puella Magi and completely looses it, calling her a monster (which is incredibly out of character for both her and Kyousuke).

So yeah, i don't hate her but i don't love her either.