Metroid fans, welcome to the Zelda cycle.
Oh boy. You are a fool to assume that there aren't also some Zelda fans here. Your perspective of the Zelda Cycle is very wrong.
The Zelda Cycle is when a previously released Zelda game suddenly receives more love and attention than it received at launch, and coincidentally this always happens after the next entry is released. Also, this is really only applicable to the console games, which since Ocarina Of Time and with only one exception in Four Swords Adventures (Which doesn't count), have all been 3D. One reason why this happens is because of the rather long gap between releases of 3D Zelda games, which gives people time to actually play the game themselves instead of just going by internet propoganda.
This is how former "black sheep" like Majora's Mask and Wind Waker suddenly became considered among the best games in the series, even alongside games that have
always been well received, like Ocarina Of Time.
However, the Zelda Cycle is flawed and isn't a 100% perfect analysis of the behavior of Zelda fans. For one, every Zelda fan has their own personal preference of what the best Zelda game is, because put simply and with few exceptions, every Zelda game can be considered a masterpiece (Yes, even Skyward Sword has its fans, folks). There is no such thing as a bad or poorly-made Zelda game (Outside of the CD-i games which again, do not count), even the DS games were still solid in their own right, they were unfortunate victims of the system they were on and Nintendo wanting to capitalize on the motion control and touch control craze, and the games suffered because of that (The Ocean King temple in PH did not help matters, however. One of the very few times that a Zelda game suffered from a legitimately bad game design choice).
However, even taking all of what I just said as opinion and not a correct analysis, the point is, Metroid as a series is not comparable to Zelda in terms of fan response. Other M received a mixed reception upon release, and the series coincidentally went into another hiatus after not having one for little over half a decade. The series had an 8-year hiatus between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime/Fusion, but the series received consistent releases for several years until Other M in 2010. This new multiplayer thing is the first new game with Metroid in the title to be released other than a side-game in Nintendo Land.
Zelda as a series has seen consistent releases since the 1990's, never really underground a "hiatus" of any sort. Metroid as a series has been on-and-off its entire lifespan, not even receiving any sort of anniversary celebration.
Apparently Other M is not that bad. It's bad, but not as bad as this.
Other M had good gameplay (Only marred by the stupid unlock system), but suffered from a bad story. It has like... 75-79 metacritic or something like, which is what the game deserves in terms of review scores, honestly. Still a huge drop from Prime 3. I don't think anyone would object to Nintendo giving that formula another go. All they needed to do was toss out the unlock system and proooobaly work on that story some more, and it would have been something special.
