But it was something unwanted, so why would people be grateful for it? You're acting like we should all have been grateful from the get-go. :/
I feel DmC invalidates (almost) everything that's happened up to now. It invalidates the previous games. Sure, the DMC games still exist, I know that would be your argument (as I've heard it before), but in terms of plot, characters and pretty much everything else, they just threw it all away (oh, sorry, rebooted it -_-). They didn't even end the DMC series. Instead, they decided to 'westernize' a game series that didn't need to be westernized. They decided to replace DMC's personality with that of DmC. It turned out not to work for many people, so they understandably got upset. You don't just throw away the old series and replace it with something that doesn't resemble it much. And you certainly shouldn't slap the name Devil May Cry on it if it's essentially a remake-boot (remoot? rebake)? Yes, I call it a rebake because it's so different from DMC in terms of atmosphere, characters, soundtrack, all of that. The gameplay's similar to DMC4... yeah, so what? Gameplay doesn't make or break the game; it's all of its parts combined. The word 'reboot' makes it sound like they've started over after many years, without changing anything (or very little). Besides, it's a needless rehash. Seriously, Mundus again? Oh look, I'm fighting Vergil now - it's trying to be DMC3. How... original? Revolutionary? It has indeed been 're-baked'.
Maybe I would accept it if it were a bit less pretentious in that it's trying too hard, and if it were a bit closer to the original feel of Devil May Cry, because it's too similar to what they did with RE6. RE4, maybe passable, but RE6...man. It hardly feels like RE. Rocket launcher-wielding parasite zombies exploding when you kill them... well, alrighty then!
But even then, if Capcom is trying to do something new, I'd tell them to do something new. Develop a new game. Be more creative. Be less assholy about the fans' reactions. You're catering to the fans, or consumers, a bit too - let's say 70% your product, 30% the customers'. Public relations, consumer satisfaction, etc. This is also what you're a company for, so get used to it.
As for DMC4, I thought it was a pretty good game. The backtracking really did a number on it, but in terms of quality, it wasn't that far off from DMC3. Say what you will about its form of humor, word play and characters, but whatever you say may be considered subjective, as it has nothing to do with the game's quality per se. The gameplay still hasn't been beaten, the characters are 'Japanesey', (but in a cool way), the graphics are really nice, the soundtrack is nice at times, and the plot is decent enough. I don't think plots need to be overly intricate or original, they just need to be done well. The writing/script helps a lot, too. Originality does not equal quality. If it did, there would be very few TV shows, plays, games and other media that could get good reviews.
Even the voice acting is decent. Neither the backtracking nor DMC4's version of Dante ruins the game for me. If it did, it would be pretty odd to consider DMC3 a lot better, as it featured some backtracking, too, and had a more (obviously) obnoxious, hyperactive version of Dante. So that argument would not make any sense. An aversion to his clothing is understandable. DMC1 was a very nice game at the time, no doubt, but saying it's the best DMC in terms of gameplay even today, well, that's ludicrous. The combos you do are far less interesting, less intricate, audiovisually less appealing, and so on.
Yeah, DmC was a mistake; even financially it didn't do as well as they'd hoped. It just transcended the minimum quota. Anyway, there's been enough debate about that, so I won't go into that again.