Best: Gen-fu, Akira, Hayate, Every single Female character. Bass.
Worst: every other male character.
Most of the male redesigns are simply just that. Complete redesigns. Which is odd when you take characters like Akira and Gen Fu into account.
Bayman, Jann Lee, Zack, Eliot, Brad Wong... Their facial structures for DOA5 don't even resemble minutely what previous games in the series were able to show. It's rather jarring. I wouldn't recognize them as the same character if not for the fact they're wearing the same costumes, and that their names are printed on the screen.
Bass is probably the best looking "different" male character, considering they made him a little (realistically) thinner.
I'm beginning to doubt Hayabusa will have an unmasked costume, but for the most part - his NG3 costume was bad and I feel sad that they put it in the game. This series really needs a custom costume mode it in or something, you so can swap out his awful NG3 costume for his NG1 or even NG2 versions.
Eliot had some style with his default costume in DOA4. It was a shame to see that costume not make a return in DOA
and one can only hope it's in DOA5, despite not being shown yet. Another thing about Eliot, he had long sideburns which also added to his unique appearance among the DOA cast. Those are gone for DOA5.
Also, Rig looks a little evil with his facial structure, along with his scarred hairline. Guy looks like he's seen some shit in his lifetime.