Dante was always a cheeseball character, and the scripts have always been bad. It was never meant to be high art, it's been a schlocky series from the beginning.
I can see why people "like" the party-time Dante from DMC4 with the confetti blowing around and all that weird gesturing, but I think people need to get their head out of the sand. This image just doesn't appeal to a lot of people:
If you really go back and look at the old games, the story and characters are impossible to relate to. They're just fantastical hero legends.
The new game isn't out yet, so no one can really say if the new Dante is a good character or not. But a lot of people can relate to the "fight the power" angle, and they're already hinting that he starts as an asshole and slowly finds something to care about as he goes through the game. There's plenty of potential for a simple character arc.
I doubt that the story will be Oscar worthy, but it'll definitely be a bit more thought provoking and relatable for a general audience. And really, there's not much worth saving from the old "party time" character... how much growth has Dante had throughout the entire series up to this point?
Last point: if DMC4 had sold like gangbusters, they probably wouldn't have rebooted the character.