I think it's a pretty crappy game, of course great gameplay and design like Super Mario Bros could have altered my opinion, but IMO the gameplay experience is extremely limited and nothing special. It's not just the graphics and sound which are below expectations for me.

graphics = bragging rights for fanboys

Translation: I played for 2 hours and couldn`t finish a single stage.

Of course they do.

If there were too identical games, gameplay wise, but one looked like a NES game, an the other looked like a PS3 game, I'd play the PS3 game. Why play ugly games when I can not burn my retinas, and play a good looking game?

Neither do games need to have amazing special effects, they just need to be convicing for the kind of experience they aim for. You can have a dramatic game without flying dragons spewing fire, hordes of space ships, etc, etc. Good lighting, image quality, good quality and dramatic audio, etc, etc will all add the experience of a dramatic movie.

Of course a game (like some animation movies) is all computer generated, so imperfections take more effort to be addressed properly. But you can better aim for hyper-realism (exaggerated experience).

Graphics are extremely important. Not how detailed or realistic they look but how imaginative they are. The graphics is de Blob, for example, are great. The fact that you move from building to building by adding color to a black and white world is really cool.

I can appreciate a good side scroller, but I think with regard to MegaMan 80's NES technology really got into the way with regard to the gameplay they implemented.

It was already the Amiga era back then, IMO this game is not of 80's Amiga or Arcade quality. I think it's a mediocre gameplay experience at the time (now IMO it's pretty horrible, just milking nostalgic feelings) like was usual for the bulk of 3rd party NES games.

nope, just think of the best game ever: Super Mario Bros !!

Gameplay always trumps graphics. A good 8 bit game can still have great graphics even today. MM9 proves this... so the extra pixel of color doesn't matter as much as the art that went into making the game.

Uh, graphics are actually a big reason why Mega Man 9 is well recieved.

"Graphics" doesn't have to mean numbers of pixels...the graphics of Mega Man 9 are simple, a return to a classic style...it's classic graphics, and it's the reason people like it so much.  Case, if Mega Man 9 had typical modern 3D graphics, it probably wouldn't have done well, or gotten so much news anyway.