You are crazy guys (and I say it with love), first of all there's no plot holes in MGS2 and Kojima tell us through the game to believe in yourself, to trust yourself. Throw any plot hole at me I'll give you the answer (my answer). In MGS2 the real Metal Gear is GW and the real weapon of mass destruction is information (how the new digital age is changing everything about it) and it touches themes like memes and social behavior. Kojima himself teach us to not trust everything we see when he did the famous switcheroo with Raiden, all trailers looked like you were going to play as Snake, again information led us to believe a lie.

Raiden is a great character and a neccesary one, Snake has a new look on life, is all mature and wise to keep being a pawn in the Patriots game thats why we needed the flawed Raiden. Kojima had balls of steel and choose to be faithful to his story and it could only have happened with Raiden.

MGS3 is a good game but it was a cop out by Kojima, he wrote a very straightforward predictable story. The gameplay was slow and clunky because you had to constantly enter the menu and change your cammo, heal yourself or eat and that wasn't fun, well it was fun seeing Snake eat crap for the first time but then it got boring. And in that fight with The Fear you had to enter the menu every 20 seconds because he would poison you.

Cobra unit were easy and had no backstory (except for The End which was awesome and challenging).

The Fear is some dude that can turn himself invisible for some reason and had zero backstory.

The Pain can grow bees in his stomach (why?) had zero backstory and you could beat him with your eyes closed.

The Fury is some guy who went to space saw the world and now he is pissed! He is always pissed for no reason. (WTF Kojima?)

The Sorrow had a good backstory but the fight was terrible, walk up and eat the pill oh my god how challenging.

And The Joy was the easiest final boss in MGS story, just hide in the flowers and shoot with the sniper, even on the hardest difficulty it was easy. Liquid and Solidus would laugh at that, go and try to beat them in european extreme.

Dead cell was better in every aspect.

It was straightforward but there were a lot of hidden nods to the series in the background and some fun easter eggs (like the vampire dream).  The character driven story was simple enough to be understood but got you to care so much more about the characters than Raiden's endless love speeches to Rose and whining.  I honestly shed tears when I had to shoot the boss and the ending twists were crazy but not implausible.  The bosses were the best in any game ever because they all required a very different strategy to beat.  Whether it was a battle of endurance with the End or seeing every one of your kills facing the Sorrow it was always a unique fight.  I remember how much I hated Volgin too.  The third time I thought I killed him (when the bridge fell) I honestly said aloud "Will you just die already!" it really could get you to think something was impossible.

I can understand if you liked MGS3 story better but Cobra unit bosses where too easy even in "European Extreme" except for The End. Beating The Pain, The Fear and The Fury didn't really require any strategy I just shoot them, The Sorrow may have been a "unique" fight but that doesn't made it fun, it looked pretty and atmospheric but it was boring and easy, it was just walking. The Joy was easy with the sniper. Shagohod fight was easy too. I do liked Volgin but he wasn't a real challenge.

Dead Cell was great, hiding and shooting against Fortune, Fatman is full of tension you have to find, freeze the bombs and fight with him at the same time, the harrier fight requires great skill and its awesome seeing Snake throwing you ammo, Vamp is an overpowered bad ass almost impossible to beat in European Extreme, fighting the 25 metal gears is a test of endurance like no other, they attack you 3 at a time a have different moves, and finally the samurai fight against Solidus at the top of Federal Hall.

MGS2 was so deep people still write articles and make videos about.

You shouldn't, Square-Enix hasn't shown support towards SONY (PS3, PSVita)

Pretty annoying tbh :/

There's still hope Cloud is in the game.

The public beta is now live. I'd love you guys who are still angry and deeply wounded about only having 20 characters to check it out and post impressions. After playing does the roster feel stronger?