Out of morbid curiosity, I gave this game a try, and it pretty much deserves all the flack it gets.

The story is bland and there was nothing that stood out at all.

The atmosphere is a severe downgrade from the first game and the overall style feels soulless and boring.

The AI is poorly designed and boring to fight against. There is also a severe over reliance on devil trigger and skipping fights almost feels encouraged with how sloppy the combat feels. Not to mention the style meter disappears if you don't do damage for 2 seconds.

The game's levels are far too big and shrinking them to be thrice to five times as smaller wouldn't have resulted in much being lost.

There are some small positives, though.
The inclusion of a dodge button, which would be expanded to the trickster style in the 3rd game, was nice.
The game includes multiple playable characters.
There is quick weapon switching for guns.
The amulet mechanic, which allows customization of your Devil Trigger was neat.
The orb design is bad, but in hilarious way. That first red orb face you see sets up the tone for the game perfectly.
And the voice acting, despite Dante feeling like he knows he's in DMC2 is so cheesy it's loveable.