I am currently writing a paper for publication in a journal. My supervisors suggested a journal that is a generic journal covering my topic and my field amongst many other topics and I agreed to this one as appropriate. It does not have a very high impact factor but is acceptable. One of the co-authors suggested submitting it to a open-access journal which is more specific to my topic and it is a recently started journal (only a year or so old), but its sister journals are very reputable and well used and read by the community.
When I looked up this open-access journal, I liked the idea of submitting to it, but my supervisor said that because its open access the paper will invite more harsh comments than the other "normal" peer reviewed journal. I understand what he means and he has a point because there are some aspects of my work that are controversial, but at the same time I know I do have a good and unique dataset which should(?!) withstand the scrutiny.
Any advice/comment on which one to go for? Has anyone published in an open-access journal before? Is it harder to get the work published there?