I don't believe I'm participating in a topic squarely negative about the game made by a known hater(cons and fails? Really? I'm sure you could have thought of a less annoying title), but whatever, I do have a complaint or two.
-Lack of button inputs. It isn't even because of the lack of lock on, because really it isn't necessary, but there's a lot of inputs they could have mapped that would have opened up more possibilities to add new abilities.
-Speaking of the lock on though, while it IS there, maybe if they just put a cursor on it would shut people up. You CAN switch targets and everything, but everyone that complains about the lock on acts like it isn't even there at all.
-They should take out demon dodge and replace it with some kind of block. Maybe. This is a hard one, because having so many attacks in the game that can be parried is actually wonderful, and taking that away would actually suck. But maybe by putting something like Royal Guard on the demon stance and adding a way to release it'd be better. I'm not sure. Again, MAYBE.
-If they choose to keep the current parry system and demon dodge, tighten up the windows on both. And everything else too. Now that we have this game to ease us into the new system, it'd only be natural progression that it's harder in the next game(likely on next gen systems, and likely able to handle the game running at 60 fps). Maybe tone down the damage boost on the demon weapons.
-More bosses. The bosses here aren't as bad as people say. I don't see how they're worse than the older ones. They have attacks of which you must learn the tells, and how to avoid them. They don't have predictable patterns and all of that mess. There just needs to be more of them. In this game they could have easily made the Butcher, Tyrant, and Drekavac bosses. Give em more health, a couple more moves, an appropriate intro, and we'd have been set. Hell, they could have still kept the normal enemy variants. Just made a more dangerous one as a boss. Or let some of the other bosses(like the Hunter) harass Dante throughout the game. They did say the "hunters" found Dante. Unless they meant, "hunter's."
-I honestly don't have a problem with the aligned enemies, only the fact that an attack from the wrong weapon bounces off of them. It breaks up the combat. Maybe have them tank the damage and stun, but don't stun Dante. I know it's what usually happened in the old series, but still. When there's so many of them and no lock on it can be a little annoying. But by no means do I think they're bad enemies. These aren't the first enemies you have to take out a preferred way, and I quite like that the DT renders they're immunities irrelevant.
-Speaking of DT, I like it and everything, but maybe give the floating effect a time limit. I'm not entirely sure, but I thought they would eventually hit the ground anyway, but yeah. Maybe a few other DT specific abilites. I'm not too pressed about it since DMC3 didn't have any besides copy/pasting Alastor onto Nevan and the DTE, but it'd be nice to get something else to use with DT. Even if it's purely aesthetic flair on his already existing moves(though I'm sure they'd go ahead and add different/stronger properties), I'd like it. Maybe we'll get that in the next game since this is him just coming into his DT. He may get an actual change in form next time around.
-I like the platforming, but add in more puzzles and objectives like with mission 18. I like puzzles, and it makes me think of DMC1(and to a lesser extent, DMC3).
-Speaking of DMC1, here's a problem I've had with ALL of the games after it. WHERE TF ARE THE CRITICAL HITS!? ADD THESE BACK IN! THEY WERE AWESOME, AND NEAT AS HELL TO DISCOVER! I do think they're on the right track, though. You can shoot the wings off of enemies, deflect damn near everything thrown at you, it's a lot better than the enemies of 2-4. I mean, they had a FEW similar things, but DM/mC are much better, IMO.
-Not really a qualm with the gameplay here, but the game could use more action scenes. A lot more.
Now all of these don't necessarily make the game bad to me. It's still a solid 9, and the best action game since Bayonetta(which is highly overrated for some reason).