To each his own, I guess. A bud of mine disliked SH2 and that's my favorite. SH3 definitely looked great (I was blown away by characters' faces for some reason) but it didn't really add anything to the series, at least in my opinion. The story could have been better, considering where they went with SH2. I also remember not being able to get into the game and just not feeling it for almost the whole first half. There were too many 'tricks' used from pevious games that didn't work quite as well. It was a solid SH game but no more and no less.
That's exactly what this fifth one seems like to me. They don't dig deeper and they don't add anything new; they're using the old tricks to make it feel like SH, which ironically makes it feel like someone other than Team Silent is trying to make it feel like SH. Things could have been worse, of course, but it just makes the game completely uninteresting.
I wouldn't say that SH4 story is deeper than SH3 but the room was an awesome idea. Even though it was originally not supposed to do anything with SH series, it fit the setting perfectly. There were plenty of flaws and having to return to the apt to manage items was a pain in the ass but it was different while retaining the actual creepy feel of SH. There was a lot of potential and some of it was realized to create some scary shit in that room. Also, those things coming out of the walls looked badass. The 2d controls didn't bother me either because they could be changed in the options. Can't comment on performance, as I played it on PS2.