Mario 3d land was awesome and I couldn't stop playing it (I even started playing it again yesterday after playing nsmv2 for awhile).

NSMB 2 is, I hate to say it, kinda bland to me...liked it when I first started playing it, halfway through world 2 started kinda feeling like I was replaying every mario game I'd played for the last 20+ years and not in a good way.
Has no heart in my opinion.
Yeah, gotta say as an 'oldtime' mario fan myself, this is the first time a mario game has seemed totally like a cash grab to me. It would be a major letdown but I kind of had the feeling it was gonna be a rush job before I played it.

My guess would be that just like Mario Kart 7, the game is rushed (in fact, I think I heard somewhere that all maps were designed through an extremely limited amount of time).

That's very different compared to how Miyamoto played through Super Mario 64, realized it got boring after a while, and remade major parts of the game. There's simply not time for enough quality-checks.

@ the1- If there ever was the perfect job, it would be playing through Mario games for quality checking purposes :)

Well, NSMBU looks quite promising of what have been shown so far and is starting use new material. NSMBU will without a doubt score higher than NSMB2 and SM3DL is the real deal when it comes down to Mario for the 3DS, even though I was very dissapointed with the extra worlds. I won't get NSMB2 till 2 or 3 years from now.

This too is likely. Nintendo announced it out of the blue and in the midst of the dark days of 3DS sales, and so it could have gone through the same process that Mario Kart 7 did.

The thing is, Mario Kart 7 is a little lacking in content, but the core package is enjoyable and very entertaining as Retro Studios was called to complete it in time. This one looks like it was rushed, but this time, no help was given to it's development.

It's not that hard, just change it. And no, adding a pointless coin gimmick doesn't change anything. Look at more recent platformers like Rayman Origins and Super Meat Boy, then figure out why those are so loved. In my opinion the first step would be getting rid of the lives system. Then change up the art style. Make it unique like they used. Don't just recycle the same game over and over again. It worked for a while, but even the most hardcore Nintendo fans have to be getting tired of it.

If I had to guess, the reason this game seems so bland is because it was these creators' first Mario. Even the Wii u game is adding things like pretty backgrounds, assymetric gameplay, Demon Souls style hints, etc. This just happens to be the creation of a newbie team.

Why do we need to do that? its not like most of the audience for this game would read the reviews anyway

Good, i was tired of seeing 90s thrown at games that had apparent issues, its like they were afraid to give some of the games they score it deserved.