This is clearly not a game for everyone. Regarding the tree most prominent criticisms I've read about this game:

1) "The controls are bad". Well, personally, after a while, I found myself mastering them and didn't have too much of a problem navigating the world. Games usually are about mastering things and having the patiente and resillience to pull through.
2) Which takes me to: "this game is boring". Huh? Did we play the same thing? I don't know, this isn't a game with EXPLOSIONS or too much going on in the narrative, but, while it takes its time to really kick things off, it managed to pull me straight into its atmosphere and I found myself playing in sessions of 2-3 hours, something I don't usually do for most games now-a-days.
3) The story is "confusing". Well, I get this game is somewhat ambiguous about some of its elements, but I've read and watched enough sci-fi to connect the dots and get where this game was going. I think it asks interesting questions about religion, faith, perseverance and fatalism all at once. The ending is open-ended, which is something I really like, and I think your intepretation of its tone will depend on your stance and belief on what just happened throughout the game.

Overall, I think this is a really interesting game, and whether you'll like it or not, will depend on the fact if you like slow-burning games, are patient enough and if the themes and story resonate with you.

I have some criticisms about the structure of the game being too linear for the systems which it proposes, that could make for a more open-ended exeperience, but when I learned to love the game for what it is, it just clicked immediately for me.

I really hope this games finds more people who can appreciate it! It really deserves it and it's clear a lot of love and work went into it.

The original Metroid II is a more important video game, and honestly a better game for the sheer atmosphere the black and white graphics grant it. However, Samus Returns is more than a remake of the most underrated mainline Metroid game. It's a mission statement from developers that made it their mission to resurrect the series and make it kick even more ass than it did before, and that's certainly worth a lot in my eyes.

Is it better than Super, Fusion, or Zero Mission? Nah, but the addition of the parry being such a good thing for the combat was a genuine shock, and the presentation throughout does a great job of modernizing the series in a world full of imitators.

The only genuine knock I have against the game is the fact that its on the 3DS. This control scheme in combination with the high difficulty made this thing a real pain to play through on actual 3DS hardware. It might just be me, but I can't imagine the damn thing was built for this sort of game and I found myself wishing that I could just sync a Switch pro controller and play that way.

In any case, I'm overjoyed that this game helped pave the way for Dread and that we'll be getting a bigger, badder follow-up to this impressive first outing.