I think Dirge of Cerberus Final Fantasy VII was a great story. Personally, DMC3 was a pretty good story but I kinda more of a cinematic/climatic type of story......most DMC games seem so anti-climatic or lacks cinematography. Yeah the world is in danger but its not very evident on the outside (DMC4 tried for a more climatic approach).
DMC1's story telling worked cause it was more classical Resident Evil styled story telling (it even has the classic escape an exploding island by plane ending scene RE overdue a lot) and DMC1 wasn't some insane, high budgeted, cinematic save the world from destruction like DMC2, DMC3, DMC4, Bayonetta, Transformers, and the Avengers...it was like Resident Evil where it was a tale about survival and fighting off an onslaught of fierce and deadly creatures but it has the personal vendetta plot and dark themes of betrayal, love, family, and what separates humans from demons. Its problem was its execution and its very generic and cheesy lines. The game had very bad writers I assume but then again RE when it first came out and all was criticized for its writing and voice acting.
DMC2 went the total different direction with the more cinematic, intense type story telling with themes about humanity and finding your purpose in life and it tries with the "Dante is surpassing his father" theme and that history repeats itself. Its problem was a lack of dialogue and the rushed writers. It had great ideas better than DMC1 but it was badly rushed out.
DMC3's problem was that it tried to go back to DMC1's roots but still retain DMC2's intense action/cinemography and wasn't successful in trying to be both. DMC1 was more silent, dark, and horrific tale about survival and revenge as well as family and bonds while DMC2 was more about intense action, cinematic scenes, and the follow in the father footsteps so DMC3 tried to do both. It brought back the dark and gothic atmosphere but kept the action and cinematics it worked for the most time but the dark and silent as well as gothic themes kinda brought down the intense and awesome story portion cause I found the quick transition from dark and serious to cinematic, funny, and campy too unreal but the sibling rivalry added to following in daddy's footsteps theme. I felt DMC3 should've stick to DMC2's feel but expanded upon it rather than mix DMC1 with DMC2 it kinda made a lot of the moments in the game kinda boring or didn't have much foundation behind them.
DMC4 tried something else by adding a conspiracy theory, a new main character with unknown origins, make the previous main character do evil deeds without giving an answer so it appeared he turned bad, self acceptance, and adding romance. It failed to deliver on any of those. They didn't develop the mystery behind Dante's actions well enough....it was already evident Dante had good intentions behind his actions from the start. The conspiracy theory was so freaking simple, the good guys are the bad guys and the bad guy is the good guy...no depth behind it other than that and it was barely developed at all......the Savoir thing was just so random. Heck when I first saw the statue when I was in the beginning of mission 11 I didn't think it was relevant just for scenery til it came to life. Nero we can talk about later but his romantic relationship just came off as IchigoXOrihime 2.0 and I hate Bleach but anyway Nero & Kyrie's relationship had zero development from the beginning when we knew jacksh*t about them they already had feelings for each other. Then there is that DMC4 did worst than all the other past DMC games when it came to explaining about the characters and settings. Like at least with DMC2 I learned enough about Lucia to care same goes for Lady but when Credo died....I couldn't care less because I barely knew anything about him outside he is the general and Kyrie's older brother. The game didn't even explain much about Fortuna Island and its history at least DMC2 did that for Dumary Island. Don't get me on character interaction....and role...in this game it was rather.
I felt DMC4 was built on a better premise than the past games and had more potential but it made mistakes not even the past DMC games made. Worst of all in DMC4 was Dante.