"This game looks ugly" is not the same as "capcom didn't spend 20 million dollars on facial animation and graphics" and you know it
MvC3 didn't have a massive budget yet it has a better visual presentation than MvCI, and that game came out six years ago. SFV looks way better than this game and that game is nearly 2 years old.
And presentation matters whether you care or not
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm a long running casual of the Versus series (and fighting games in general to be honest) and part of the hype of the Versus games from that perspective, even if they've been traditionally scant on modes, is seeing my favorite characters rendered in cool Capcom styles. MVC3 was more or less initially disappointing to me because it felt like it hadn't done a great job translating the classical Capcom sprite art into 3D, but it quickly grew on me and I went forward thinking it actually looked pretty great.
That hasn't really happened with MVCI yet, though I'm willing to make a few concessions in terms of visuals and presentation: color usage is great, the lighting seems alright, and I generally think the stage backgrounds look fantastic.
It's the character models and the UI elements that truly suffer, though, and that applies to characters that already existed in fine visual form in MVC3, like Cap and Dante. The UI lacks any oomph -- generally seems like basic text and perfect square edges everywhere. There's no sense of life and personality -- no pulsing X-factor gauge, no use of layered paneling graphic design to meters, no comic book panel main menu with foreground images of the game's roster in crazy situations... It's all so meh.
I mean, I could give a lot more forgiveness to something like KOFXIV knowing that it's a company rising back from the ashes and finally make its very first debut into the 3D space... But Capcom Versus games have a much different, long-running reputation and an establishment in the 3D realm that I just don't feel is quite lived up to in Infinite, and despite being a fighting casual, part of the draw of the Versus games is being able to play with a lot of characters from a wide variety of properties I enjoy outside of the realm of fighters in crazy, celebratory presentation, and that just isn't achieved with Infinite. And while I understand Capcom is struggling, I feel like there could've been a lot of ways to work around their budget limitations and still deliver something better than MVCI's launch look. I hope that the game sees enough commercial success so that it can spur some alterations in its presentation later down the road, similar to how KOF XIV got patched for improved visuals later.
I'm still excited, I may be casual but I do know enough about fighting games to understand the implications of the gameplay changes. The initial roster does feel like the most underwhelming debut roster in the Versus series to me so far, but it still features enough that I'm not feeling completely excluded. However, the presentation is holding it back from the long-running high-bar love I've had for the series, and I hope it can be addressed later on.
