Resident evil 5 tries to find its place but doesn't.
Another thing that this was lacking is the character development, this is another reason why resident evil 4 and 2 did well in. The characters in those games had emotion and a goal as well like rescuing the presidents daughter and get the heck out, while in resident evil 2 the main goal was to really find a way out of this horrific city while somehow meeting up with leon and claire in the process depending on which one you choose. In Resident evil 5 it feels like a search this area kill some things move on to the next stage oh yeah we gotta kill wesker along the way. This felt like a vendetta then an actual mission/progression.
I don't think chris and sheva really had any bad struggles like the past characters really had, in the previous games it sorta seem like "is there any light at the end of this tunnel? Can we really make it, we gotta try but who knows what would be the outcome we are up against such great odds I just don't know." This is why I liked the previous games... In this how ever, no matter how bad things got it seems like they could really handle anything, and you got the feel as though if anything bad happens its gonna be ok.
As from the last paragraph, along with that it really had no good bosses, you never really felt a threat of like "oh no.." you got the sense of let me kill you and get this stage over with. But I guess in resident evil 5 since its an action title maybe they wanted to do it this way. Above the good gameplay, and graphics this game is good on its on merits of being a resident evil title alone. But when you look at the characters,bosses and the plot things seems to have gotten watered down a bit. But that shouldn't stop you from enjoying the game of course. Hopefully in the next entry things will go back to its root and be the survival horror game we have all been waiting for or better yet fearing for.