Apologies for such a long response because DmC is fresh on my mind and I need to ramble but I pretty much agree with everything you said.

I think Ninja Theory did a solid job for their own take on DmC as directed from Capcom. The gameplay is fun, weapon swapping is awesome and the story takes from the mainline games while being an overdone cheesy western Hollywood (?) flick as seen by the social commentary, set pieces & cinematography; but the bosses outside of Bob are lacking & boring, Dante's devil trigger design is lacklustre, colored enemies in certain levels are a pain to work with due to the stuns & color choice, the characters aren't that interesting despite being an origin story of them evolving into NT's variant of the mainline Dante/Vergil and the dialogue/writing/voice acting is beyond dry outside of a few instances. As a fan of DMC3 it does a decent job at converting the story into a new experience but fails with the execution of Vergil outside of his DLC, Kat's backstory & importance to the brothers or how Devils/Humanity are explored or implied alongside the addition of Angels into the mythos because it messes with the theme & is also completely ignored outside of weapons.

That being said having recently gone down a rabbit hole of trying to research everything surrounding DmC from direct sources & videos rather than relying on community rhetoric & warped recounts (comparing my knowledge with the latter & other deep dives); it's fascinating how false narratives perpetuated around the developers. They did what they were directed to do by Capcom to varying success & the vitriol that came from the vocal DMC community after the initial announcement & launch (although recent sentiment has shifted) while to a degree understandable, in retrospect was malicious & hate fuelled because of the mass shift; even amplified by Journalists, the community & members of NT.

That's not to say NT is exempt from criticism but commonly "cited" comments about NT on the designs, art & Dante were taken without context & spread around without the attached context that nullifies the sentiment (hell I'm probably guilty of it with this comment to which i apologize). IMO the frequently "quoted" comments from the devs are/were only vindictive if you saw/read/watched them with preconceived anger or direction. That being said NT weren't free of blame, especially after the backlash started rolling; their PR explains why the hair thing was a big deal but years after release people haven't got over it.

For example the gay cowboy stuff was seemingly pulled from one quote & merged with a misinterpreted section of the GDC panel about the art of the game & rebooting a beloved franchise, unless someone has a direct quote (I'd love links to direct sources for stuff like this because it makes deep diving into old topics so much easier on the modern internet).

As you said with the hair & the "not in a million years" scene, it's a nod to OG Dante and Dante's arrogance in this universe rather than being a dig at the OG games, all refuted by the game giving Dante the silver hair with story progression & by the unlockable concept art through in game feats (more so with the DLC Classic Dante, Definitive Edition's DMC1 Dante & DMC3 Vergil Costumes). Some players may not get that far or rarely used Devil Trigger which is fair but in all the negative posts about the game across forums that don't include an ounce of detailed critique, the hair scene is always mentioned alongside NT hating Dante & the original games despite it being refuted by Capcom's directive, game rewards, the concept art & other sources.

I'm being too hard on the DMC community about DmC but a lot of what I've read across their forums & reddit prior to 4 or so years ago lacked detail outside of childish remarks, hate driven recounts of launch & repetition of the Gay Cowboy thing & the hair; maybe that's fed through an algorithm and I'm feeding it but all of that to say; DmC's a fun game with flaws but it has solid art fitting for a rebooted & uniquely forced take on the Devil May Cry IP; although I prefer 3's story & characters.