After such a weak release with Soul Calibur 3, you'd think the only way to go from there is up...
It's enough the game's system has changed little from the previous games, but the developers felt it to be necessary to further cut down an already truncated move list further, to the point were the game is boring to watch as the same 10 moves are thrown out.
As with every other fighting game not made by Sega, this game still suffers from "excess character syndrome," as Rock/Astaroth, Mina/Kilik (as much as I love playing her), one of the sisters + lizzy, Raph/Amy, and etc are completely unnecessary. It'd be better if the pairs of characters where combined to make 1 worthwhile character with an expansive move list with more stances. Why not? Rock and Mina suck so badly they're basically a waste of space on the roster, and Raph has been so dumbed down that he is completely boring to play as, and so on.
I'm not even going to touch up too much on:
The story (because no fighting game story is ever good)
The graphics (they're excellent, but like a middle American, this game is shallow)
Online (fighting games suck online)
The stupid character customization feature (Namco should spend time making a balanced game for once)
This game is terrible, because it's just the same thing repackaged.
The only thing it did right (kinda) was make an extremely boring Soul Calibur 3 character interesting: Tira is fun now, but because of the random stance change makes her too weak (it is enough her damage is awful).
After this experience, as well as with Tekken 6, Namco will never receive a cent from me again.