I greatly enjoyed the guy in the role. Honestly the only time he felt off was BatmanvSuperman, but that wasn't really his fault as even though I admittedly like the movie one of its several flaws is that it virtually never lets Superman show his optimistic and kindhearted side (like, yes he's facing a ton of criticism, but goddamn, you can see how many people are so grateful for him saving them in that montage, you'd think that would put some things in perspective for him). Man of Steel and especially Justice League did show this side of him and Cavill to me has shown he can do the role justice. Let's have Man of Steel 2 with Brainaic finally getting to be a movie villain, or Justice League 2 when they're ready.
I never really understood the dislike of Man of Steel. People were upset that innocents died or something? It was a cool movie and Cavill plays the role well.
I will always disagree with the "Superman casually caused deaths" in Man of Steel. Let's look at the film:
-Superman tackles Zod when he's about to kill his mother and sends him flying into a gas tanker. Okay, that likely could have killed someone, but come on. It's literally the start of his first fight ever against someone on this level, and who wouldn't lose control for a moment if their own mother's life was on the line? This doesn't make Superman "uncaring" or some shit
-Smallville fight. Superman warns the civilians to get inside. Now some might say he should have told them to run out the back, but think about it. We know how fast these beings can go and the fight could easily end up over there, and running outside just exposes them. Hiding is probably their best bet as at least they're not generally visible. And no, Zod and his troops are not above just murdering civilians. Faora flat out says they will kill a thousand people for every one Superman saves. Zod tries to kill a family as soon as he sees them. They see humanity as beneath them, and don't give a shit.
Then the collateral damage in the town? Mostly caused by the military, not Superman actually. And Superman saves a soldier who was falling, even asking if he's okay. Pointing this out as some claimed in the movie Superman only cared about his mom and Lois. I guess they immediately forgot about the scene where he saves a lot of people on an oil rig.
-Metropolis. Okay, I feel casualties would have been way lower if some of the citizens had used basic survival instincts. The Daily Planet employees just stare at the World Engine killing people for minutes before Perry finally yells for an evacuation of the building. Then, when Superman and Zod are clashing in the sky, people are just staring. RUN!!!!! Yes, aliens with superhuman abilities, it's fascinating sure, but you've seen the destruction so far so USE YOUR BRAIN! It's not Superman's job to tell people when it's obviously time to evacuate the city as quickly as possible.
Then, when Superman and Zod fight, Zod has made it very clear he does not give a shit anymore. He wants to hurt Superman as much as possible. Some people were all, "Clark should have led him out of the city." HOW?! This isn't Dragonball Z where the few times they could do that it was believable the villain would allow it, or the hero was waiting there. If Superman simply flies off to leave the city, Zod would likely just start murdering a ton of people to show what he thinks of Superman seemingly running away. It's why when he flies away to the Fortress of Solitude in Superman 2 thinking Zod will follow him it really bothers me, heck Zod has Lois and Lex right there, Zod could have just murdered them and then flown off after Superman! And no, the argument of him aiming his punches to "lead" Zod out of the city is insane. I feel some people must have no idea how a fight works or seem to be under the incorrect assumption that Superman was vastly faster than Zod as there's no way he could pull that off. Not to mention that would distract his focus which should be purely to stop Zod as BILLIONS of lives likely ride on it as Zod could be indestructible against all of humanity since Kryptonite isn't discovered later (and Diana does exist, but let's be real they didn't know that when writing this movie).
Then, when Superman kills Zod to save the family, people still complained. Never mind how he did kill Zod and two other Kryptonians in the comics as it was his one option to save people from dying, but nobody freaked out when Batman basically killed Two-Face and Talia in the Dark Knight trilogy as he did it to save innocents. Yes, the whole "no killing" policy is nice, but I always believed that was only if there were realistically other options, and if following that policy meant the immediate death of innocents they would make an exception if they had to. And it's not like Superman enjoyed it, dude fucking freaks his shit out about it.
I know BatmanvSuperman plays out like it agrees with the critics of MoS somewhat, but I question if that film's story wasn't written in response to those criticisms. Not to mention Batman ultimately doesn't even really seem to want to kill Supes because of that but more because he thinks anyone with that much power should be killed because there's a possibility they could go evil which never felt Batman to me at all even in his more extreme depictions in the comics like in Kingdom Come. Thankfully after the fight all this shit is pushed aside and hopefully not brought up again (no, I don't want that "bad future" the Flash warned Bruce about to play out even in an alternate timeline, the "evil Superman" shtick is played out for me at this point).
Sorry if that was pretty lengthy, but yeah I never had that much of an issue with how Superman handled his fighting in MoS. It felt mostly believable what would happen if beings on his level showed up with ill intentions in an occupied area. No way is that clash just going to play out without some serious destruction.