I don't think dante's looks is wat most classic fans disagreed to but the character itself. There were a lot of hidden attributes to classic DMC characters. Like lady, though she acts tough and plays hard to get, she does open herself and say things like "Please free my father", "This is my father, my family, this was all supposed to end by my hands","I thought i was never going to cry". Same with vergil when he says, "This is our father's home". And the most thick facade was dante, he acts playful and toys with demons. He never shows his weakness to demons. Even when beowulff crushed him to the ground, he shrugs it off. The only places where he did show his anger was against vergil in mission 7 where he says,"I don't have a father , i jus don't like you" and he got served by vergil.
Dante's attitude in DmC was not a facade but the character itself.
Very good observations.
I always thought most DMC characters had a facade and at some point they showed their emotions and true intentions.
A good example is the last mission in DMC3. Notice how the characters have a different attitude than the one in Mission 7,when they first met?
Dante is more serious and nervous and at the end he even sheds some tears for his brothers loss.Things that we haven't seen until then.This represented his change in behaviour and personality to his future self in DMC1.
And he acts different when it comes to his brother,probably because he is the only one that can defeat him and because he is part of his family.With the other demons it's a different situation because they don't hold any importance or emotional bonds with him.That's why he doesn't even take them seriously.But with Vergil is a different thing because he sees him as the only being that can challenge him and has equal powers and has the same blood as him.
As you said,in the last mission Vergil also starts to show some of his true colors when he says to Dante : "Leave me and go"
Why would he care after all for his brother?
Same with Lady,she's the tough and violent type,but then she starts crying at the loss of her father.
I start to think they're emotional unstable and don't want to be seen as such because they show emotions.
But even with NTDante,you can notice his change in behaviour when he confronts Vergil,just like the one in DMC3.