Signs point to Inafune for that detail.
During his last years at Capcom, Inafune used his position as Head of R&D/Global Head of Production to push his "westernization" ambitions, and DmC was likely a proponent of that.
Sven actually made a post about this when he was still at Capcom:
Sven said:How does Capcom come the conclusion to "westernize" a series?
(recent examples: DMC, Lost Planet 3)
Both of those, and some of the prior (like Bionic Commando) were driven by Inafune... now departed. You'd have to ask him but as I recall, the logic was something along the lines of "doing the same thing is going to get us the same results (if we're lucky). Let's try something from a different perspective." In some cases, a Western one.
http://www.capcom-unity.com/ask_capcom/go/thread/view/7371/29769521/east-vs-west-how-does-this-work-sven&post_num=3#528984145