there is a huge list of reasons why, but...
Main reason why its story is bad, and the portrayal of samus was bad, was not because they gave her emotions(ie, the excuse everyone who fanboys/fangirls over other m try to label those that didn't like it as, trying to say they hated it just cuz it "gave" samus "emotions" which is total BS btw.) but because of how ridiculous and over the top the "emotions" they gave her were, it often felt like i was watching a cheesy over the top anime half the time...where the woman always has to be completely unsure of herself, needs the big strong male mentor to give her guidance, and is a queen of melodrama. Nothing Wrong with trying to give a character more "human" emotions, but the things they gave samus in other m didn't feel "human" prime 3 and 2 actually did better jobs at showing samus having emotions and feelings then other m in a lot of ways, part of which is in those games she didn't constantly blabber on about how she was feeling, she SHOWED everyone.
http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/learning-from-other-m
but its not just that however, things just weren't written well, nor executed well.
for instance....
WHY did samus piss herself like she did from encountering ridley for the (chronologically) 5th time now?
she's seen him fall down a reactor shaft, get blown up by the chozo statues in prime 1, destroyed his phazon form in prime 3, in the original metroid disintegrated right in front of her, and killed him again in super.
Safe to say, ridley can cheat death, and SHE KNOWS this, there is not any logical reason for why she should of been so terrified or scared like she was in the ridley scene, if this was prime 1 or basically the 2nd time she faced him, it would of been understandable, but after 5 times killing him already, she should know he has a way to come back. So her crying her eyes out of fear in that scene didn't make sense.
But you wanna know how it could have made sense? and STILL showed her having emotion? instead of crying her eyes out from fear, have her have an emotional breakdown from anger instead, over the simple fact that she HAS killed him so many times and he keeps coming back, it still could of let her lose control of her suit the way it did, it still could of let anthony come in and save the day, and it sure as hell would of made more sense to see her raging over the fact that no matter what she does he keeps coming back, and in many ways it would of caused her to connect to the fans more that way(imagine it showing flashbacks to how many times she's killed him, from the nes fight, to the prime games, to super, instead of her flashing back to a scared little child, maybe have her thinking outloud a bit while its happening about how no matter what she's done he keeps coming back. I tell you what, if something like that woudl of happened in my eyes could of made everything esle i didn't like about other m worth it just for that scene.)
I'll cut it there cuz i think y'all get the idea; Other M's story, or if nothing else at least the very way it was executed wwas done poorly, hence the backlash. I could write up other things like how the hell run was just as bad, but the ridley scene IMO is one of the easiest ones to understand, and also the one that COULD of been the best, most emotional(in a good way, for both fans and her character) moments in the game, but instead, cuz of the way it was handled it became one of worst, most *facepalming* moments in the game. I could go into how the relationship between adam and samus was executed so poorly and made it seem belittling to samus, and even sexist, or how the plot itself didn't make sense and how it caused the events in fusion to become even more confusing but the wall of text is long enough as is.
as for the other problems....well, the controls (specifically switching to First person) felt awkward at times, and the dodge button was pretty broken, in the sense that it was easy to abuse to avoid nearly...well everything.
at least the boss battles were fun though, if nothing else getting to see nightmare, the metroid queen, and phantoon in 3D was awesome.
either way, I hope nintendo either sweeps other M under the rug as non-cannon, or at the very least gives us another game that tries to correct and fix all the blunders in the game.
I Want samus to have emotions, don't get me wrong, and i hate when people say folks like me just want samus to be an emotionless robotic psychopath bent on killing everything.
But it needs to be done right, and honestly other M's mess of a story was not done right at all.
Do i want nintendo to give another go at giving samus some personality? yes, but i also want them to think about it better, and hire decent writers next time.
