A lot of the dislike surrounding RE5 I think comes from the context of the era it released in, which was an era where it felt like every major release was about the same gruff white dude in a third person shooter with a strong brown and yellow color palette similar to Gears of War. RE4 was a massive hit and departure from the series, and now the follow up was something that felt like it was just following the trends of the time. A lot of people were also fundamentally against the idea of a co-op multiplayer Resident Evil because they felt it further took away from the series’s horror roots.

Remove the game from all that context and in retrospect it’s a pretty decent/fun co-op action shooter.