I also disliked their change of art direction, and that they downplayed Trish and Lady, that went from badass female characters to being pretty useless in 5.
Yeah, I also disliked the art direction. Going for the "realistic" human design was sort of a downgrade imo.
I also think that this game had much less action cutscenes compared to 3 and 4.
In regards to OP, I think all characters are fun to play and we'll balanced, but I did dislike the shifting a little bit, and it did generate some filler in a story that already doesn't have much going on. I don't think it was lame or even a bad decision, since they were probably avoiding the gameplay becoming stale. But I think that developing levels for 2 characters should be enough. Level design was very linear, and when we get in the tree, the aesthetics also suck.