1. Nerfed counters
2. More guaranteed damage
3. 2 new characters
4. Better sidesteps (which should buff the neutral game)
5. Critical Burst
6. Limited comeback mechanic (Power Blows)
7. More dynamic stage interaction
That's at least 7 new things that I can off the top of my head alone.
1. Nerfing counters wasn't necessary. If you want to be literal, then you got me on that. DOA5 did indeed nerf counters.
2. More Guaranteed Damage. Again, not necessary, but if you want to be literal, DOA5 does indeed have
more of that.
3.
Actually, most of the things you listed here are just being quite literal, while actually not being necessary. So I'm just going to get on and say that Free Stepping has been in the series since forever, and worked fine as it was intended. Some characters had side-step command attacks like Hayate, Hitomi, Kokoro, Bayman's rolling leg grab, etc. and those were just fine as character specific moves because it helped add variation to the cast of fighters. Citing Critical Burst after "more guaranteed damage" is redundant. The power blows are a neat addition, and yes - the stages are dynamic (something DOA has always been known for).
That being said, here are a few counter-arguments (Not that i'm trying to argue, I just don't know what else to call them):
1. It's been seven years since DOA4. Having better graphics and additional new characters goes without saying. Taking that into consideration, we also lost two fighters who have been around since DOA2 and featured in every DOA game sans the Xtreme Beach Volleyball series. On top of that, we lost Tengu who's also been around since DOA2 but went on hiatus for DOA3, thankfully making a return in DOA4 and DOAD. We also lost Raidou and Genra who were the bosses of DOA1 and DOA3 respectively, who made their triumphant returns for DOAD.
All in all, DOAD had 24 unique characters and no guest characters. DOA5 has 21 unique characters.
2. DOA5 lacks costume variety, but since it's been seven years since DOA4 with many other fighting games on the market that allow you to customize your character's costume, what DOA5 is actually lacking is a customization feature.
3. Although the stages are great, it's also nice to fight on normal stages. Normal stages like beaches, snowy hillsides, forest trails, and bridges. The least "dynamic" of the DOA5 stages are essentially Tatami and Dead or Alive. There's no real variation there. Also it would have been nice to retain character themes, or have new character themes. Simple stage themes as well as the entire focus of stages in general make it seem like DOA5 is an environment simulator, not a fighting game with character(s).
4. Story mode is nice. The actual story remains to be loved or detested by fans of the series. I've seen the ending credits and after-credit videos on Youtube already since I don't plan on buying this game anytime soon, but obviously still remain interested in the DOA series as a whole. Again, the story mode explaining how to play the game with mini-missions for each fight to help people understand the game is neat. I can't say the actual story of DOA5 is where it should have been at this point though, unless an enhanced DOA5 or new DOA6 is coming out next year.
The game did a lot of neat things, but it also missed a lot of marks. I'm actually really sick of trying to show people what's "wrong" with this game, so i'm going to stop. If people want to enjoy it, then it should be beyond me to take that from them. It's not an explicitly bad game.