If by classics you mean during the Sega consoles, they made a point to remove those from the list, only the games made on Non-Sega consoles, e.g Sonic 06 Werehog black Knight etc etc.

this, if you bought into Wii Music you deserve your money to be taken

Wow... so far in this thread we have a guy who thinks that the DKC series was BORING, but somehow loves Returns which is just DKC with tacked on motion controls and 10 times the mine cart / forced scrolling levels.

And we have another who thinks that Wii Music was a great game.

I said I thought Returns was better, I never said I loved it. What I love is the original arcade Donkey Kong games. But yes, in my opinion the DK Country games are tedious. I only brought it up as an example of a series I believe to be more overated than Sonic's latest efforts of which I have fun playing.

But in your list of "guys" in this thread you forgot one. We have a guy who thinks his opinion is better than other peoples opinions. You. ;)

It's not "just DKC with x tacked on," everything from the design of the levels to the pacing has undergone a drastic overhaul and an injection of Retro genius to bring it back to the genre's cutting edge.

See what I did there? 

DKC Returns is "cutting edge"?  Hardly... there's nothing it does that hasn't been done a million times already in other platforming games, and very few of the levels actually stood out to me, mainly the silhouette levels because of their art style.  Rayman Origins on the other hand surpasses DKCR in pretty much every aspect, from the graphics/animation, to the level design and gameplay. 

Pacing?  Having an entire area that consists of nothing but minecart levels isn't exactly my idea of good pacing.

Genius?  Retro removed some of the most unique characters, baddies and themes from the DKC series and replaced them with incredibly generic and unoriginal ones in Returns.  No animal buddies except for Rambi, and absolutely no underwater levels either.

Well, what you find tedious I find challenging and addictive. The original arcade Donkey Kong appeals to me in the same was as I think golf appeals to golfers. It's simple and challenging, but rewarding and no matter how good you get there's always room to improve.

DK Country on the other hand I just don't "get". I love platformers like Mario, Sonic, Castlevania, Mega Man, etc. but compared to those classics DK Country feels slow and plodding.  Collecting bananas should be as fun as collecting Sonic's rings, but I find myself skipping the former and obsessively hording the latter. It's just not for me.

UHHHHHH.... gee, maybe that's because they each constitute two entirely different gameplay functions?!?

The rings in Sonic games are basically health and are an absolute necessity for survival in such a fast paced game, because without them it's 1-hit and you're dead.  The bananas in DKC serve the exact same purpose as coins do in every single Mario game... get a free life for every 100 you collect.  That's it.  Do you have a problem with collecting coins in Mario games as well?

I don't have a problem with you enjoying the classic DK games while not really feeling the DKC SNES games, but what I simply can't understand is your reasoning why the DKC games are so inferior to other platformers....  DKC is slow and plodding compared to CASTLEVANIA???

As John Mcenroe would say... you cannot be serious!

The way DKCR plays with patterns and twists on those patterns within its level design is second to none among 2D platformers, even including Rayman Origins.

The changes from the old ones aren't a drawback. The kremlings were mediocre villains and the underwater levels sucked.