FINAL THOUGHTS
Mixed bag. Unlike (presumably) most others, I actually appreciated the attempt to humanize Samus and lift the veil which had made her Nintendo's most mysterious character for two decades. Unfortunately, the manner in which this was attempted was mishandled. Other M would have worked better as an early game in the Metroid timeline - probably the second. I'm not a Metroid guru, but knowing that this Samus has already gone through the events of Super Metroid and all three Prime games just makes things difficult to reconcile. She shouldn't have been that shocked to see Ridley or that emotionally beholden to Adam and her old teammates, but honestly, those are minor quibbles compared to where the game really ****ed up.
F***-UPS
Control scheme - should have just used the Wiimote and nunchuck. It's hard - really really hard - to turn Samus into an action superstar on par with Dante, Ryu H., and Bayonetta with like two buttons at your disposal. The transition from third person to first person view was often jarring and didn't flow well during combat. It also limited most of Samus's arsenal. Missiles, Super Missiles, the Grapple Beam - everything felt less cool than it did in Prime1/2/3. I understand Team Ninja was trying to blend 2D and 3D, but reverting to the NES control scheme wasn't gonna cut it for a full-fledged 2010 release.
Dialogue and story - The dialogue could have used a lot of work. Samus gets too introspective far too often, breaking all subtlety. There's a difference between communicating things with the player and spelling out every little deal. The latter is just poor story telling. We don't need a short paragraph from Samus, by Samus, on Samus every time something happens.
That's how you do it. No words spoken. A thousand told.
Everything in Other M sounds way too, for lack of a better word, Japanese. The translation team didn't do a great job imo. I didn't get such a vibe from Prime 3 (which also contained more dialogue than Metroid usually does), probably because that was created by an American dev from the start. Other M is proof positive that not everything needs voice acting cuz it can end up sounding corny as ****, especially when it's originally created by people from a different culture halfway across the world. I wonder if Japanese gamers get a similar vibe from Call of Duty's dialogue and Japanese dubs.
And what's with this weapon authorization stuff? Couldn't they have thought up a better way for Samus to grow and gain her powers? It's ludicrous and does more to diminish Samus's character than her PTSD and feelings toward Adam, which I probably hated less than the average player. It also meant less in the way of exciting pickups during play. Picking up a weapon upgrade after a good fight is so much more satisfying than having it in your arsenal from the start but unavailable because your “commanding officer” has yet to authorize it. God damn, it felt stupid just to type that last sentence.
Gameplay - Combat just should have been more dynamic, exciting, varied, satisfying... you name it. This is an action game by Team Ninja, but it didn't really feel like it. It felt less like the action games of today and more like Mega Man in 3D. Here's a complaint I've yet to hear anyone else bring up: enemies NEVER drop ANYTHING. No health, no ammo, no upgrades, no XP, nothing. The difference between dropping something small like health or ammo and nothin' at all is significant. If the combat itself isn't outstanding (and it ain't), the game needs to give us actual incentive to fight.
All main story boss fights besides Ridley were weak, and the forced first-person sections where you had to "spot the tiny clue in the room" were dumb. Since this game didn't nail the action, we could have benefited from some puzzles but received none. Shame, as the Prime series had some killer puzzles.