Everyone has their opinion i guess. I for one, also loved FFXII, which for some reason, alot of people hate. Still MGS4 will be the best in the series, if anything, graphics wise anyway lol.

Not sure what your definition of good is but a game that gets great reviews and has a story that is told in a way that captivates many many people while having fun gameplay seems to be good enough for me to call it good. 

Deus Ex's story was not simplier, it was just much better told with better, clear and concise lines. Deus Ex approached the themes as if they were just there by a mere coincidence, and did not let it be forced down the players' throats. MGS2 or any other MGS has nothing compared to Deus Ex. 

As for Oblivion, it's regarded as the best RPG of the last 2 years by some people, but those people are more likely newbies at RPG's. If you just check Bethesda forums, most of them were very disappointed by how Oblivion turned out, and I can tell you that most wRPG enthusiasts think of Oblivion as a bland experience.  Oblivion only captured the minds of mostly action junkies. The Witcher, which came out last year, is a better RPG.

I agree with Onimusha, MGS2 was easily the worst of the series and one of the most overhyped games ever. If it lives up to that standard then it will be a huge disappointment.

From the previews I've been reading however, MGS4 looks excellent. But then again, so too did MGS2 before its release.

I still think mgs 2 was gibberish, everything before was great. I'm not saying the game sucked, i'm just saying the ending sucked (like i said gibberish). Maybe i didn't understand the ending. But i think MGS3 ending was beautifull. With The Boss and Snake. A real tearjerker for me.

@ shio
I'm afraid Deus Ex is a lot simpler than MGS2. It merely tackles the notion of free will in relation to digital consiousness a la Blade Runner or Ghost in the Shell. Don't get me wrong; Deus Ex is an awesome game, but it has a fairly simple (not to mention derivative) cyberpunk plot. It may be more effective than MGS2, but it is considerably less ambitious from a philosophical standpoint.

The Witcher was a great game, and it certainly trumped Oblivion in some areas, but it was definitely not a better game overall. And it seems like a strange title to mention when throwing around accusations of being an RPG n00b (hit me where it hurts why dontcha?) as it's stats system, alchemy system, spell system and levelling system were all considerably more primitive than those found in Oblivion. It also lacked any kind of character customisation, which is a definite no-no for many RPG fans (myself included).

Oblivion may have had a weak story, some questionable design decisions and the controversial "levelled" monsters, but the amount of depth in other areas more than made up for those flaws.

Have you really played Deus Ex? Because the "notion of free will in relation to digital consiousness" is but a mere bit of Deus Ex. The game tackles political philosophies, greed and ambition of the god-like, world domination, freedom of speech; and to a smaller scale the loss of identity, cloning and religion.

The story was certainly not derivative, as there are not really many cyberpunk, conspiracy-centric stories and Deus Ex's was extremely well done and might I add, is the Blade Runner equivalent in videogaming.

Funny thing you say Oblivion having depth, because apart from the world size and number of skills, Oblivion was very shallow. Oblivion's biggest flaw was not the leveling system, nor the weak story, nor the boring repetitive dungeons, nor the undistinguishable NPC's and Quests. Oh no, Oblivion's biggest flaw was the lack of the most important trait of RPGs.... the freedom of choice/consequence.

Basically, other than the exploration, Oblivion never gave the player a true meaning to it's actions and it almost never gave the players multiple ways to do the quests. It's terrible when no matter how many quests you did, it would always be insignificant in the grand scheme.

The Witcher did much better than Oblivion. In the Witcher your actions could heavily impact your path later on, and that is true roleplay. 

You know what would've been better. If they balanced the story with the game itself. The game lacked the variety. MGS3's gameplay was more likeable for me than MGS2. If only MGS2 had more variety in it's gameplay rather than being pounded with awesome cut scenes. ..

For me it is :

MGS1 > MGS3 > MGS2

Yes, the MGS2 story was strange (I m still asking me if Rose was real or not) but still, it was a good game. They could have improved the story and some character background (Solidus Snake ...). I was ok with Raiden.
I didn't feel "rapped"

About MGS3, my main problem is the Cobra team character background thati s simply TOO weak. Put a background behind The Fear (worst MGS boss), The Pain and that would be perfect.

 I feel pretty much the same way. MGS1 is the classic and it'll get top spot from me. MGS3, in my opinion, was pretty amazing. I don't recall if there were any codec background information on The Cobras similar to all of the information you could find out in MGS1 and 2, but I still liked the weird and interesting boss fights. Also, I loved the cut-scenes in MGS3 and I especially enjoyed the motorcycle parts near the end. Oh and Not to mention the new gameplay mechanics were pretty cool too, just a little problematic because it would get a little time consuming to constantly go into the menus to change your outfit for example (yay for Octocammo). 

When it comes to MGS2, I didn't feel too short changed by Raiden, but I would have liked to play as Snake a lot more. Not only that, the story is weird, but the more you play through it the more you begin to notice certain details. My problem with Raiden was that he was pretty much a 'Snake clone' and he didn't feel too different from Snake. It's part of the story and I understand that, but Raiden didn't really become a 'cool' character to me until he got the sword.