Great game, definitely not worth the bad reputation it has. Fluid combat, a lot moreso than other DMC titles, with combos that can chain into other weapons (for example: 2 sword slashes + 1 delayed axe slash gets you the triple hit combo ender for that), a good story reboot, as well as the DLC expanding on said story.

The only bad part that people really hated it for was that they essentially pointed out "This ain't the rodeo you're used to" by having Dante look partly like the original for a moment, followed by him saying "not in a million years" and throwing it down. It's literally just a "HEY, THIS ISN'T LIKE THE OTHERS" but people took that as an insult to him and Capcom for some reason. I mean, getting insulted for a fictional character is moot, but getting insulted for a company shines that company in a pretty bad light imo if they just let it happen.

Anyway, I highly recommend this for veteran and new DMC players alike, it's very fast-paced and the combat scenes more than once left me thinking on my feet, especially in the higher difficulties (especially in the DLC on the higher difficulty, MAN some of those were brutal, since you have fewer combos to switch between there. Lots of movement necessary.).