Background: The expression 竜頭蛇尾, which is literally "dragon's head, snake's tail", seems to imply that the front is more impressive than the back. [EDIT] It seems usage is typically time-like, eg an effort began well but fizzled out towards the end. (Dictionary links: goo, jisho) It carries a bit of a sense of anti-climax.
I recently saw the phrase in an English article about a computer game (Overwatch) developed by a non-Japanese company (Blizzard), describing how Blizzard appropriated and misused the Japanese expression (in a non-malicious and silly way). Apparently some Japanese players noticed and have been posting about it. Link to article. But when I mentioned the phrase to one of my friends (a native speaker), they seemed rather confused. Apparently they had never heard the expression before.
Question: What kinds of contexts (written vs spoken, academic-field-specific, geographic location and age of speaker, etc) would this expression come up in?
Secondary/related questions: Roughly, which native speakers would be familiar with this term, and to what degree is it esoteric?