Resident Evil 5 was an incredible game. Sure it just took what RE4 started and didn't really expand on the formula, but it took the engine and made it into a phenomenal experience. OK, OK, so it's just RE4HD. But still it was a great game. Being human and having an opinion, here's a list of things that I personally think could have made the game better and a lot more memorable than being "just a sequel":

1. They should have kept the mirage effect. Well ok, it's still there with the reapers(shoot any part of their body and they release a game that makes mirages of themselves), but if the whole game had that effect, be it the Las Plagas had attached that to about every enemy in the game(or the ones that make sense at least), the atmosphere would've been a lot more dreadful to progress though. You wouldn't be able to tell what is real and what's not, leaving your own fate in despair.

2. The marshlands were creepy areas to traverse, but they could have been even more eerie at night. Let's face it, having this installment of Resident Evil in the daylight was a bad idea. Well, it really wasn't a bad idea when they attached all of those unique ideas onto it(dehydration, mirages, adjusting eyes to sunlight), but when Capcom scrapped those ideas, they took the scary along with it. The marshlands are a prime example; massive crocodiles in the water, an ancient tribe trying to kill you, and voodoo and shaman shit everywhere. I could only imagine seeing the crocodile's glowing red eyes in the water at night, and the tribal's glowing bright red eyes in the darkness. You wouldn't know where they would be coming from, with your only source of light being your weaponry. Same thing with the temple. Even though those are my 2 favorite parts in the game, they were a totally missed importunity with suspense and terror.

3. I really wanted to explore the Kijuju town more. The earlier trailers depicted Chris walking through alleyways and open areas of the town. There were areas in the trailer that never showed up in the actual game, with the only "big" area of the village being the Public Assembly area. The game does have a reasonable amount of backstreets, alleyways and buildings to explore, but it felt too small compared to RE4's village, which was massive on comparison. And what happened to the villagers using a rope to bring down the bus in the Public Assembly area? It was in the trailer, but I guess they took it out.

4. I would've liked to had seen more B.O.W.'s. The Licker Betas were a great comeback, but that's really about it. The enemies in the game were cool(I love the designs of the Plagas parasites, U-8 and the bat-thing), but they were too far in between. Uroboros was really repetitive, and I know it's the theme of the game, but fighting it 4 times(counting the Wesker fight) is overdoing it. RE4 had more varied boss battles, and 5's just are quite as memorable. Who doesn't remember fighting U3 in the cages in midair, only to escape cliffside and thinking you killed it, only for it to climb back up the cliff and kill you?

5. The Merchant was awesome. That's all I have to say.

6. Even though this RE was more canonical than 4 was(take away Leon, Ada and Wesker and you wouldn't think that was a Resident Evil), Capcom still left open plotholes. We see the head of Umbrella after all of these years, where the virus comes from, and the Doomsday project mentioned in various RE's in full effect here, but at the same time, the Las Plagas nonsense still sets center stage here. It's never explained how it got to Africa. And where the hell did Tricell come from? It's once again yet another pharmaceutical company to battle, in which I'm going to assume will be the antagonist corporation for RE6 and beyond. They could have done more with Jill, and I'm assuming that Sheva is now part of the main character party, so I expect to see her in later games.

7. The machine gun wielding Majini. Jesus Christ. I tolerated that, but Capcom, never do that shit again. Chapter 5-2 to the end of the game really kill the suspense mood by having us fight those things. And thanks to them, I personally don't like playing those chapters unless I have to. It's like my feelings with the Island on RE4. The village and castle was great, but the Island just sucked serious balls and totally didn't make ANY sense.

That's pretty much it. Past those flaws I found RE5 to be a great game. I didn't bitch about the controls because it's not intended to be a "Gears of War" or whatever(in fact RE4 inspired that game). I played with Type A controls with the control speed on Fastest so it was easily accessible. I just wish Capcom could have stuffed in a bit more content before sealing the deal. The game has a lot of replay value, that's for sure. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of downloadable content in the future, as a lot of side quests are missing akin to Assignment Ada and Separate Ways. Even though the game suffers from copypasta, I find myself hopelessly addicted to it, and jumping in and out of games after you complete it is just fun.