DMC1 was widely loved and thought to be a ground breaking game with a level of difficulty for all players. I couldn't beat the damn scorpion on normal...which was like mission 5 or 6 >_>; After setting it to easy, I never had another problem beating bosses. Pretty sad if I may say so myself. After seeing the extra ending movie in DMC3, I finally understood why Virgil was like he was in DMC1. =o If you don't know, then play DMC3 and kill 100 enemies in the ending credits melee.
DMC2 was hated for being "simplistic in controls and gameplay." This, I agree with. It was cool doing so many cool tricks with little effort but after a short while, it got old and boring because it took little effort. The bosses were...boring actually. Just stand back and dodge while shooting millions of bullets in a good time frame of 15 minutes which again, doesn't require much skill or effort. Just eyes, nerves, and reflexes.
DMC3 was thought to be the next DMC1 but bigger and better. I agree on that due to the fact that normal kicked my ass around the first few times I fought a boss. After dying several times, I found stratagies that squeeked out wins with no healing items left and a poor rank at the end. Trickster is wickedly overpowered though. Three quick dodges at the max level? Only the final boss(NO SPOILERS! can't stand spoilers
;) was hitting me after I maxed Trickster. It's the only reason I wasn't getting smacked around even more in boss fights.
I own all three and feel that each game has their ups and downs. I still think that the newest edition of DMC characters will have a devil trigger. Why is that? Because the fan base is going to be pissed if their character doesn't have devil trigger. That's something that you've ALWAYS had and a part of what made controling Dante so damn fun! It'd be like ripping out the main character of a huge series!