I appreciate that people give it a bad rap in terms of balance because it's not on-par with many other fighters, but honestly, I still rate it as one of the best fighters out in the "new generation" (360 onwards) because the most important thing for me is: "Did I have fun?" The answer: "Yes." Smooth controls, lots of command inputs, smooth animation, not over-dramatized with annoying-ass hit effects (which I will be disabling in DOA5) or fucking fire emanating from people's hands as they do an uppercut, unique, cool feels for a good cast of characters, etc.
The fact is that a lot of more technical fighters bore me. Now, that's not to say that being technical is a bad thing. It's not. It's a great thing, and DOA4 could have benefited from better balancing, etc. a great deal. But, in comparison to recent fighters I've played (MvC3, MK9, SFIV, SCIV) I still prefer DOA4. The flow of everything is so off in all those games (better in MK9 than the others) that moving and attacking just feels wrong. There's no momentum. Everything's static, and often revolves around pushing someone into an invisible corner (end of the stage) and spamming a bunch of cheap-as-shit juggles. Attacks never feel or flow naturally, and they look horrible (SF being the worst offender, MK9 the least).
MvC probably has more annoying, obscuring effects than SF, but some actually look cool depending on character (Vergil), whereas in SF Ibuki is the only character I visually like to watch her moves, and even so it gets stale quickly due to her ridiculously short moveset and over-dependence on the same attacks.
Then, you get these awful tag games that charge you $60 for some shit that should be incorporated into a normal release. Like seriously, why must you ALWAYS do a 2 on 2 fight that ends with the first KO in SFvT? You should have that selectable. Same goes for Tekken Tag. Why wasn't a tag featured released as optional content in a normal release? "Does anyone else notice this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -Mugatu
SCIV is atrocious in every which way. No specifics need to be given as I don't feel it did anything right.
Long story short, DOA4 could have been better, a lot better. But, I'll always come to DOA as my fighter of choice because no other fighter looks or feels as good. MvC3 may be more balanced or technical (though personally I find it about as balanced as a toddler fighting Terry Crews. Vergil,Zero,Dante>Every other mother-fucker in there), but it doesn't matter to me unless I enjoy playing it. Which I do, to an extent, but I will never enjoy it as much as DOA due to it's limited gameplay options (always 3 on 3), sticky controls, odd flow and poor visual flare. The same can be said for most other fighters, though a commendable note should be handed to MK9 which while a far cry from any DOA game aside from 1, is still a very good, fun, and entertaining game in its own right.
Anyway, hopefully I just ragged on all your favorite fighters and got some people butthurt, but remember that's just what appeals to me personally.