Hmmm, well I agree with Jim's points here to an extent, but don't think he goes far enough. He's pretty much saying the same thing in defense of Dynasty Warriors, that I have said in defense of things like turn based RPGs. They might not be to everyone's taste, but there is no reason to insult them because they aren't to yours, and making absurd claims about a series or game genere goes from bad to worse when those claims become popularized by those who parrot them without even realizing how untrue they happen to be.
That said, I have to say that when I was looking at the brawler analogy being made here that the first thing that came to mind was the current "X-men: Destiny" game, which actually seemed to be a lot closer to the old school brawler dynamic than your typical Dynasty Warrior game, and left me, and a lot of other people feeling quite disappointed.
To be honest, I think one of the problems with games like "Dynasty Warriors" is the amount of money they are charging for them. These games are selling for the same, relatively high price, as other games that took more funds and efforts to develop. I think people would receive them better, and be less critical, if the prices were lowered comparitively to the actual production values of the game.
I have gone off before about how price fixing within the industry has lead to an enviroment where you generally pay the same price irregardless of the actual game quality. Without going into the issue of morality, and even the legality, of price fixing (which I have done before), the bottom line is that when you hold a game in one hand that has state of the art graphics, professionally directed FMV video sequences that give Pixar a run for it's money, celebrity voice work, and othet hings... and then say "X-Men Destiny" or "Dynasty Warriors" in the other hand with it's less than state of the art production values and realize that the same price is attached to each... then there is a definate "WTF" reaction, leading to things being judged a lot more harshly than they probably should be. I think games like the "Dynasty Warriors" franchise get slammed largely because of the price point. The thing is though that the criticisms that are parrotted oftentimes begin with professional game reviewers, who are in many cases in an awkward position where even if they somehow haven't been paid off to endorse a product and can actually review one, that certain aspects of criticism like calling a specific group of game producers a bunch of greedy crooks, are out of line. Especially when you consider that in many cases that "greed" might actually be coming from general industry corruption rather than specific publishers, with everyone cooperating in price setting so there won't be a lot of people trying to undercut anyone else and so on.
That's my thoughts on the subject, and I'm keeping it brief rather than going into another long speil on price setting and other industry practices. The bottom line here is that I think there are reasons for the massive criticism of franchises like "Dynasty Warriors" that have little to do with the question of how fun the games might be, and just aren't addressed for professional reasons. See if "Dynasty Warriors" or other brawler-type games like say "X-Men: Destiny" were sold for $20 instead of $60 brand new... well, I doubt you'd get as much criticism. In playing "Destiny" for example I was thinking back to the olllld X-men brawler which saw digital re-release not too long ago, taken as an upgrade of THAT game as opposed to a sequel to the previous "X-Men Legends" games it's pretty good, but in today's market a game of that sort that takes 4-6 hours tops to play through beating the crap out of generic enemies should not be going for $60... and the same thing applies to Dynasty Warriors.