DmC feels very vulgar, and frequently a little gross, for no purpose other than someone somewhere got the idea that "cool" and "profane" were synonymous and they haven't been able to shake it. The issue isn't puritanical, it's to do with a pervasive sense the writing isn't swearing because it wants to, it's swearing because the game wants, desperately, for its player to think it is edgy, as if there is anything edgy about cursing in the 21st century. It's not offensive, just forced, just too... obvious. There's barely anyone, even the good guys, who refers to a female character without calling her a bitch or a whore. That's the actual problem: there ain't no subtlety.
And haven't we outgrown that? Is this what people think we want? Because the first Devil May Cry ended with Dante shooting a tentacled stone statue to death before making a daring escape in a biplane. It was foolish, but it was sincere in its foolishness. It certainly didn't have the temerity to crib a substantial portion of its plot from They Live, with "OBEY" painted in big block letters across the demon dimension. Ninja Theory avoids its proclivity towards scenery chewing antagonists, for the most part, but there's still plenty of gross-out art design that induces eye-rolls and head-shakes. This makes it hard to take seriously the decent writing (tension between Dante and Vergil, Dante's quasi-romantic relationship with Kat) amid the chaff of acid-vomiting bosses, and threats of fists shoved up asses, and jokes about fat people.
Maybe neither side of the argument "wins," because DmC isn't good enough to stifle its outraged detractors, nor is it anywhere near bad enough to prove the teeth-gnashing and breast-beating was worth the effort. It's decent. It is above average. It has some strong parts, and some not so strong parts. It's probably worth investing a weekend in if you're the sort of person who likes games where you get a sword and use it to kill a whole bunch of unambiguously evil bad-guys, and if you think a witch who spray-paints her spells is a neat idea, and if you can stand its inexplicable compulsion to force swear words out of its characters' mouths. In that respect, DmC achieves its goals. In its most crucial elements -- the ones where your homing shuriken strips away a witch's invulnerability bubble as you dodge her erupting ice stalagmites while pummeling a chainsaw guy with your molten fists -- it is successful enough to call it good.
But the other parts we loved about Devil May Cry? Dante's cocky-cute stupidity? The running about and exploring and looking for secrets? All of that is gone, or made irrelevant by sheer lack of desire. Nearly every mission has doors locked by power-ups Dante has yet to acquire, placed there for replay value with the expectation you'll be coming back again and again. But is it worth the bother? These levels were okay enough to pass through once, and their enemies were certainly fun enough to kill the first time around, but it's hard to think of a pressing reason to go back for more.