I don't want Retro to make the next Metroid game.

[theRepublic]

spemanig said:

[...]but that distinctly eerie and unnerving feeling is almost completely absent from the Prime series.[...]

I am going to completely disagree with you here.  I thought the Prime games all had eerie and unnerving locations.  Clearly some locations achieved this better than others, but the same could be said of Super Metroid.  Not every area of a game can be more creepy than the last.  There has to be some rise and fall.  A period of relative safety makes the next area seem more dangerous and unnerving.

spemanig said:

[...]But even the way they portray alien worlds is different. I rarely felt like I was exploring underground alien tunnels in the Prime games. It always felt like it took a more realistic approach to how these worlds would look like. In Super Metroid, it would rain spores and pollen. There would be entire catacombs lined with what looked like bubbles or fish eggs. Prime didn't do things like that in any of the games with the exception of the much more intentional phazon and one time where it rained static electricity.[...]

They were not usually underground tunnels, but the Prime games all had amazing environments.  The Tallon overworld, the Phendrana Drifts, and the Phazon Mines stand out in the first Metroid Prime.   It sounds like you were looking for a game that looks only like the planet Phaaze from Metroid Prime 3.  Very cool location, but I think it would lose its visual impact if the whole game looked like that.

As much as I disagree with some of your arguements, I don't really disagree with your final thoughts.  I wouldn't mind seeing Metroid developed by someone else to give it some fresh blood.  That is how we got the amazing Prime games after all.  And I wouldn't mind seeing Retro set their talents to a new challenge now that they have done three Metroid games and two DK games.