Some elements are fact- Rommel was indeed a competent commander but he was more a captain and less a general. His talents were best applied leading small units at a tactical level than leading an entire army on a strategic level, and a not-so-insignificant part of this may be a result of Hitler specifically fast tracking him to his general position above more senior officers.

But in reality, Rommel wasn't a good general. In Africa when given orders to support Italian interests in the region and protect them he instead fought an offensive war, often with no regard for the Italians, let alone their supply lines. Rommel had a poor grasp of the importance of logistics- even Patton had the wherewithal to order his troops pray to make it arrive on time- and most of his initial success in Africa had more to do with the fact that in the late 30's and early 40's the British fundamentally were not in a position to project any sort of power, especially relative to the Germans.

Which brings us to what actually happened. The British government needed to avoid projecting defeatism at the onset of the war. Rather than admitting that they'd been caught with their pants down, the British government instead played up the character and competency of German commanders- today this is referred to as the "Rommel Myth" - which sought to white wash his character- in all reality the Afrika Corps gave Jews the same treatment as any other German outfit in WW2, but wouldn't you know it, until you hit Egypt there just wasn't much of the way of them in North Africa- and play up an image of a modern day chivalrous knight as opposed to the sort of person who follows orders for the sake of following orders.

Post war instead of dropping the act, the Myth persisted in large part because the Soviet Union was building steam and the Western Allies needed to iron over the wrinkles of that war they'd just fought. So instead most of the blame was heaped on Adolf Hitler and his most unapologetic anti-semites while a willful effort was made to either erase or devalue the Wehrmacht's role in WW2 and the war crimes and human rights violations the German government committed.