I disagree. While I appreciated that the game had three playable heroes and a quasi online co-op option, I feel like all that didn't really amount to much in the end. DMC5 honestly felt like a very safe sequel that was more interested in fan service and offering a sense of closure for the classic DMC series. Many of its gameplay innovations all felt very lateral, as in nothing groundbreaking. That's not a bad thing per se, but it still felt like the game was stuck in its ways. It was a solid entry, still. I really liked the combat, and I think the visual style was really great, but seeing how the game was put together on a structural level was disappointing. I actually enjoyed that the game had influences from the RE series, with its sort of metroidvania design in the original. When it started to ditch that aspect, fulling embracing its combat encounters, then it became more difficult to connect with the setting of the games. For DMC5, it's really tough to get a frame of reference for the locations throughout. Like, I couldn't tell you a thing about Red Grave City at all. They might as well have swapped it out with DMC3's city, it was that uninteresting. This is also felt on a structural level too. The game also has blandest level design of the series, I thought the enemy encounters were largely rote, and the slimmed down puzzle design just made the out of combat experience feel like repetitive busy -- even when it was trying to do something different, like during Dante's missions.
These issues I bring up may not seem like they matter for a DMC game, but when a series has been leaning so heavily on a combat system that's been largely the same since its debut, I would hope that they would try to experiment more with other aspects of the game. I adore the combat of the series, and I actually manage to play decently on DMD modes, but even then, it can wear thin after some time. When I mentioned God of War or RE4, I'm not really saying that the game needs to be exactly like how those turned out. I just want to see a similar break from conventions. Honestly, I would love for the DMC series to move closer to an experience that's like Nier Automata. I think that game handled the union of character action, world exploration, and out of combat experiences pretty damn well. I would like to play a core DMC game that took its world and out of combat experience seriously for once. The only one that managed to do it really well was Ninja Theory's DmC.
I do think that DMC5 is arguably peak DMC on a technical and mechanical level, but I still feel the series needs to change. I actually think its success gives it a great opportunity to make some bold changes. If people were on board for a safe DMC sequel, then maybe the game can find even greater success with a grander vision.