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I remember the old Warhammer 40k where the Eldar were completely fine as a faction in the lore. They are there, on the brink of extinction, but still doing their best to stay alive. They resort to trickery and manipulation, but can sometimes be honourable as well. In Ghostmaker, Ibram Gaunt, his men and an Inquisitor help out the Eldar save their Craftworld from a Chaos invasion, and they are cool with that. Third Edition of Imperial Guards mentions the Eldar as an ally with the exception of the Avatar. Originally, the battle of Ichar V was participated by the Eldar as well. The issue of Titan comic shows Eldar titans fighting alongside the Imperius Dictatio against the Tyranids (who have somehow managed to infest and possess a Warlord Titan, the Hive Mind evolving to overcome even human and machine spirits) with the two commanders exchanging good wishes after the battle is won.

The original Dawn of War and Winter Assault both feature Eldar and Imperial alliances. Dark Crusade and Soulstorm bend the lore a bit just to have every race fighting each other, so I'm not going to complain.

Alright, so here are the insults:

- The plot with the Eldar in Dawn of War 2 is stupid. So they are trying to destroy Aurelia Sub-Sector to stop the Tyranids? But the Blood Ravens defeat the Tyranids ANYWAY! A better concept would be the Eldar DIVERTING the Tyranids to the Blood Ravens, knowing they would get roflstomped by the Space Marines. Dawn of War 3 is an even bigger atrocity with the Eldar fighting over each other for some artefact that is in fact tainted by a Daemon of Khorne. That's right! A Daemon of Khorne, not Tzeentch or Slaanesh, manages to deceive all the wise and conservative leaders of the Eldar.

- Path of the Eldar sucks. The characters are one-dimensional and the pacing is horrible. The fight scenes are poorly written. It features the Eldar fighting like Space Marines with Dire Avengers being Tactical Marines, Dark Reaper being Devastator Marines, Banshee being Chaos Raptors, Jetbikes being White Scars, Rangers being Scouts and the Avatar the big overpowered invincible Mary-sue character like Dante or Azrael. The Eldar engage the Orks out in the open, as opposed to inflicting a lightning strike, pull back, lure the enemy into a trap, and slaughter them wholesale. There was no sense of strategy employed; they just throw their army out there.

- Asurmen is awesome in the Last Days of Ector Prime. He's less so in Asurmen, the novel that bears his name but gives him very little action. Most of the fighting of Asurmen is ship-on-ship, and the Phoenix Lord is just there giving orders and occasionally repel a boarding. I hate that novel because Asurmen is such a cool guy and the daemon princess feels a bit generic as the main boss. Jain Zar is, fortunately, better. The part with Jain Zar fighting in the Wych arena is pretty awesome, though the Dark Eldar in that story must be complete nut-heads to actually fall for some of Vect's ploys.

- The big question with the Eldar is why are they trying to rebuild their Empire? This makes absolutely so sense. They don't even have the population to inhabit many worlds. The Craftworlds abandoned the Empire because it was corrupted and they hate it. The Dark Eldar are the ones descended from the Empire. If anything, the Dark Eldar should be the one more bent on reconquering the galaxy after they have conquered their own soul-thirst.

- I hate the fact many Space Marines express admiration towards the Tau even as they are killing each other and contempt towards the Eldar even as they are helping each other. Why? Why is there such discrepancy in treatment? The White Scars kill thousands of Tau in Savage Scars, but on one occasion they allow the Tau to recover their dead and wounded from the Hammerhead that destroyed one of the Ultramarine's vehicles, despite their allies' insistence on wiping out the xenos. I have no seen a story where the Space Marines allow the Eldar to recover their spirit stones after they have been defeated. Is this because the Eldar are described too often as allies and the writers don't want to give the impression it is a huge thing, whereas the Tau are still constantly fighting against the Imperium for some pieces of land?

- Death Masque is dumb. A better scenario would have been Abaddon himself leading his Chaos Chosens and Hellbrute disrupting the ritual and fighting Eldrad.

- Since 6th edition, no ally chart has ever allowed the Eldar to be a positive ally with any force of the Imperium. There was the fuckery where the Tau were actually Battle Brothers with Space Marines back n 6th edition.

- The Eldar are less and less described as backstabbing bastards. Now, it is the other way around and they are the ones getting backstabbed. The Pact and Octarius War have shown Imperial forces turning on their Eldar allies, out of pure hatred and not much else. Then why didn't they turn on the Necron and Tau out of the same gak?

- Why is it so hard for a Space Marine chapter to ally with the Eldar, when it is not that difficult for one to succumb to Chaos? Why do Space Marines act so wary when allying the Eldar for survival, but just laugh evilly when they embrace the power of Chaos for the same gak?

Because Eldar suck, and the writers hate them.

seriously, every faction in 40k gets depicted poorly at one time or another.

The Dark Eldar Path books are great, I was absolutely sold on their depiction of Commarragh and the comedic pairing of the bubbly Harlequin Motely with the stoic and incredibly badass Morr is one of the better character pairings I've seen in any book.

I can't help noticing that most of the Eldar fluff you dislike is Gav Thorpe's work. Including the theme change in 3rd edition that turned them from the misunderstood tragic heroes of the setting that they were in 2nd edition into the arrogant, xenophobic, manipulative donkey-caves they've mostly been portrayed as since then.

Ironically, Asurmen suggests Gav's had a bit of a change of heart in the years since 3rd edition, as the way the Eldar are portrayed in that book is very similar to how they were in 2nd edition (considering killing humans to be murder, realising the Eldar don't deserve their empire back, etc.)

I liked path of the eldar. The characters are one dimensional because that's what eldar do, concentrate on one path at a time. The dark eldar novels show how it is when they don't.

In general I think 6th and seventh edition fluff wasn't as good as older stuff. Great stories from fist edition of eldar helping out the imperium.

Most of those are examples of why the Space Marine fluff is stupid, rather than having anything to do with the Eldar fluff.