Ehhhh MGS 1 - GZ are pretty consistent, even if you include the non-Kojima games, walking into a MGS game with no expectation is difficult at best after, being a fan for so long.
MGS2 and 4 had so much negativity towards them in their day, and it took a while for people to come around on "MGS1 is actually better overall than Twin Snakes". It's hard to really explain unless you were around at the time, but MGS3 WAS the series as far as alot of people were concerned. I like how chip cheezum's lp of mgs2 is sort of a time capsule into a state of the fandom not so long ago, yet still so alien to how people talk about "the series" now that mgsv has come and gone. V still has problems, and I would have preferred restructuring the game to give us "Main Missions" with mother base cutscenes tied to THOSE, and side missions to play for funsies like in GZ (ex: the 3 missions between save kaz and find the honey bee are filler, then the 4 missions between honey bee and quiet/huey are filler) I kind of wonder how possible it is to use a memory editor to force missions active and get a more "streamlined playthrough" of the game, instead of forcing us to do fillery stuff all the time...
Every mgs game except 3 got shit on in its time, and yet people look back fondly on "the entire series" today...not that V doesn't have problems, but I wouldn't knock a game for it's story, story to me is a bonus to a game, and i see it as something that adds to the experience. If a story is lacking but the gameplay stands on its own, then I consider that game great. I forget who said it, but I heard a little while ago that MGSV is a 10 out of 11 game. It succeeds at making an amazing gameplay experience, but a more complete story could have elevated it beyond that. Good games don't
need good stories, it's a bonus. (It's why I don't really care about telltale games or walking simulators or until dawn. they're all stories, but stories aren't the meat and potatoes of a meal. You need a hearty dinner, story's more like a desert. The metaphor works if you ignore that people usually eat deserts last)