Bold: For real? Why?

Shitty tacked on multiplayer that has no business in a Metroid game and I hated the light/dark world thing. Nintendo kept recycling that idea and was tired of it. I also hate the idea of limited ammo in Metroid. Missles are one thing but the rest. I hate it. Felt the levels were far less cohesive.

Purely as a Metroidvania exemplar? Absolutely HK trumps the Ori games for me. Overall as a game , it is somewhat more subjective. While I personally prefer HK, Ori probably does have better platforming, and more approachable storytelling.  

Playing Metroid Dread is like watching Michael Jordan come back in 1995. You know it's the best. You're glad it's back. But... It's not championship material.

I'm enjoying it but there are just other games that have taken what 2D Metroid has perfected and refined it even, uh..perfecter (?). At this point, maybe 30% in, I think I was enjoying Samus Returns more.

It won't be the first time a game kinda let me down in the beginning only to blow me away later on. I'm hoping!

I'd say Monsterboy Cursed Kingdom is better than both

Yes Samus is your Mother

Keep playing. I was ambivalent at first as well. Then it opened up and gets much better. The bosses are especially a highlight.

My take is extremely similar. I played through the game over the launch weekend (you know I cleared my schedule). After letting it sit with me for several days, I've reached the conclusion that this is my official ranking of the Metroids:

1) Super Metroid
2) Metroid Prime
3) Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
4) Metroid Dread
5) Metroid Fusion
6) Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
7) Metroid: Samus Returns
8) Metroid: Zero Mission

Those are what I consider the good entries in this franchise; the ones I'm known to still replay. The original versions of the first two Metroid games I don't really go back to anymore now that we have superior remakes and I just never liked Other M or Federation Force. Metroid Prime Hunters is okay, but I really dislike using the touch screen for everything.

Anyway, concerning Dread, I agree with essentially everything said in the OP. More than any other game in the franchise, Dread makes me feel just plain awesome with its fluid, high-speed, and heavily stylized movement, cinematic camera, breadth of moves and upgrades, and a level of challenge that makes one feel genuinely accomplished quite often. The boss fights were more complex than we're used to from this franchise and that was a particular highlight of my experience, as was the game's mind-blowing ending! The EMMI made for a pretty fun hook too overall, I thought. The soundtrack has highlights for sure, but overall is far from my favorite in the series. All in all, Dread really does feel like the grand finale that it's intended to be and I loved it! I think that's the best way to design games; with the expectation that each entry will be the last. If you're planning on sequels from the outset, you'll probably try and "save the best for last", but if you assume each entry is the last, you'll make each one special. Not unlike Super Metroid before it, I believe that's the place this game comes from. It was meant to be something special and it is.

Still, at the end of the day, Dread didn't really tug at my heart strings quite as much as Super Metroid and that's the deciding factor in that contest for me. It's super close between this and the first couple Prime games, but after trying out Prime 1 again this week, I must say music makes the difference.

Corruption fares slightly worse than the first two Prime games in my book because it reverts essentially to being a straightforward shooter rather than an adventure-shooter, which I consider to be a somewhat conservative change of direction intended to bring the Prime games in line with the more mainstream FPS's of its time rather than retaining the full Metroid identity. Fusion ranks in slightly higher for being innovative in ways I'd consider a bit more clever and fresh, and which ultimately made Dread possible, moreover. But yeah, for my taste it's just tough to beat the regular, more heavily exploration-driven classics like Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. They've struck such a perfect balance between player freedom, style, heart, and motivating subtle tension that I almost feel like any deviation is bound to be at least a little inferior.

Seeing your guys' Metroid lists makes me want to make mine.

Okay, here we go. It's been a few days since I beat dread, so I think i'm ready. My top 10 Metroid games:

1. Metroid Prime
2. Super Metroid
3. Metroid Dread
4. Metroid Prime 2
5. Metroid Prime 3
6. Metroid: Zero Mission
7. Metroid: Fusion
8. Metroid: Samus Returns
9. Metroid: Other M
10. Metroid Prime Hunters

Honestly, I MAY actually like Dread more than Super, but i'll need to play the latter again to make absolutely sure.

My list would be the same as yours except for switching the places of Zero Mission and Fusion, i like the gameplay of Zero Mission a lot, but for me it was that game the one that started the whole "Zero Suit" bullshit and trying to find excuses to make samus "weak because she is too powerful" in a gameplay way that storywise turned in a kinda inconsistent representation, Samus becoming a complete good for nothing useless voluptuous blonde without the armor, and the other change i would make with respect to your list would be sending Other M to the last place because gameplawise it was too plain, removed all the good exploration for expansions and took the character inconsistencies to eleven, practically killing the character and her games for eleven years.