A Metroid game that makes you travel in a straight line for the entire game, can never be called decent. Before getting into any of the other problems, the level design is a catastrophic failure. A decent Metroid game would not entirely remove the exploration aspect of the franchise.
I agree, until the post game.
post game had a GREAT exploration phase, that showed us how good the game could have been with a better level design for the first part of the game.
Post game was also pretty long, time-wise.
Other M had one mistake:
it was on the wrong console.
it should have NEVER been a console game, it looks way too low budget for it
Sorry but nothing screamed low budget in Other M.
you could dislike the choices done, of course, but it wasn't a cheap spin off at all.
sakamoto + team ninja isn't cheap; top looking graphic assets aren't cheap (you and many other can dislike the art direction, but technically it was a Wii showcase); voice acting and storitellyng aren't cheap (once again, you could dislike how they handled it but they were there); deep combat/control scheme aren't cheap.
It's not that a (mostly) sidescrolling camera angle make a game cheap.
Ok that I've heard for months that Mario 3D World was cheap because of its camera, but stil...