I don't mind X8's gameplay style in the least (besides Crystal Wall being Rush Search X, anyway), but I will say that it could use a new can of paint. Besides my general distaste for Yoshikawa's robot art, the in-game visuals show quite a bit of laziness. The character models are poorly detailed and X's armor was clearly designed to cut corners on his mugshots (and MHX was even worse on both counts).
I meant more along the lines that with EVERYTHING being buyable from the shop, the stages had very little replay value. Why back in my day, things like Subtanks were found in stages. And power up parts often were too. (well, with scattered reploids to rescue)
It just bothered me that everything was buyable. It was just too easy to tank out the protagonists. Especially with how easy it is to rake up Metals. (I mean BESIDES the glitch)
if you ask me, Z4 did the parts thing in an interesting way. you needed enemy parts. the right ones too. And then Ceratanium.
It really surprises me that the previews for the game show a nice cell shaded border around the characters, which suddenly disappeared down the line. X8's models looked very angular... I mean, even X7 had better models than X8.

(once again, enhanced by the cell shading on them)
Also, please dont tempt me into helmet bitching over X8 and MHX, pleeeease... D: