Not looking to start an argument, just airing my grievances about gameplay.
The lack of a lock-on was one of the killers for me; if there was an enemy I wanted to focus fire on (usually the Witches), it was work to get the game to understand what I want to focus on. Given that enemies would also launch attacks from off-screen was annoying as well, so it made trying to focus on type of enemy down. This was mostly mitigated once I found out the throwing weapon could lock multiple enemies down, letting you do whatever it is you want. The most damning memory of this was in level where you fight enemies in a church (before it split all limbo crazy), two of the enemies were the big bulky armored guys. I'd dodge one and shoot, but Dante would shoot at one all the way on the other side of the room. The camera would also fight me on which one I should concentrate on, the moment I decide to focus the one the camera seems to gravitate towards, it'd start telling me to go for the other one.
I'd have to agree to disagree on the gameplay mostly being there; it was there no doubt, but have to disagree with mostly. I preferred the style system, DMC4 was the epitome of fucking awesome with all the shit you could do. While DmC had style and flash, I found myself just repeating the same combos over and over; first to build style, then whatever hit the hardest. With the style system you had a lot more variance and options, in this a lot of the weapons (sans the throwing weapon) just feel like reworked versions of each other; Rebellion was a balanced baseline, Axe/Glove was power over speed, Scythe was speed over power. There was also the bullshit demon/angel enemies that came with them; but those quickly became a non-issue because you can lock the angel type down with the throwing weapon, then work on whatever is around.
With projectiles, the guns serve a very limited purpose as there's very little (if any) way to style with them and they're weak. Even the grenade launcher-esque weapon was underpowered. I tried using them from time to time but found them to be useless. Once I got into the swing of things, I only used the shotgun to deal with those... ... black and yellow glowy bug swarm things that charge at you and explode. Not sure what they're called, but one shotgun blast and they're down. That was my gun use. I'm not asking for another Artemis or Pandora, but seriously... he has guns... give us a reason to use them.
Those are my big 3 gameplay wise; camera, style, and guns. I have other issues, but they don't carry as much weight as these did. However I will leave with what I did like; the Bob Barbas fight and the Night Club level. I didn't like the boss in the nightclub level, but the level itself was really enjoyable.
Captcha didn't like my answer. It asked if I wanted my tablet to be more work friendly, I said no and it said I was wrong. Fuck you Captcha.