My opinion;
I think it's a good thing.
DMC was getting rather stale in story and gameplay.
With story DMC has always lacked real style or originality of an already thought up idea for a story. It's just too simple and there's no real umf to it. DMC1 was well done with the story cause it had the darker plot out of all of them, and was quite well put together. DMC2 had potential to be a good story, but it was rushed and ended up becoming what it is now. DMC3, in my opinion, was just a copy and paste of Inuyasha, but with a twist. Twin half breed brothers, born from a powerful demon and a human woman. Both carry their dad's swords, and both have snow white hair and one in red. DMC4 was pretty much Bleach in an alternate universe with Nero being voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch, and Dante just being there for the fan service, which I certainly didn't like since Dante acted more immature then he did in DMC3, which was okay cause he was younger at the time. DmC isn't winning any originality points either, but as I've said in the beginning, "Make a story that doesn't just copy the original stuff you got it from" and DmC has used a lot of material from different movies, games, and movies.
Gameplay wise DMC1 was good, but it was also pretty stiff from what I've heard. Yes, it did revolutionize the Hack n' Slash Genre, but now a days it's just whatever with video game addicts. DMC2 was the worst in gameplay in DMC standards, but if not for DMC2, DMC3 wouldn't be as good as it is. Finally DMC3 got it right and mixed both gameplay styles of 1 and 2 and fused it to make 3 as good as it is now. However DMC4 is when I realized DMC was getting stale. Seeing Dante's moves, it was pretty much DMC3 all over again but with all styles available. Dante didn't really fight any different, and was pretty much a copy of DMC3 Dante in gameplay style. Nero was just DMC1 and DMC2 Dante fused with his gameplay and he also hardly had much weapons to have fun with. DmC's gameplay does what DMC3 did; fuse two DMC games together. Now DmC has fused all the DMC game mechanics together and has created what it is today.
Don't get me wrong; I loved DMC, and I loved the classic red coated, white haired bad ass that is Dante, but I can only love an anime styled character so long if he doesn't evolve somehow.