You sir clearly do not know the wonders of the MSX :P

mgs 3 was the best in the series then 1 then 4 but 2 was boring because it was raiden

Got "Solid Snake" as disc two of Metal Gear Solid Subsistance!  It was surprisingly good for an 8-bit game!

I stand corrected then xD I loved the MSX version, it was much better than the NES port, it really felt like a solid game, no pun intended xD

i thought MGS4 was a beautifully made game,

and any game where the main man is a cool old dude like snake gets a big thumbs up from me,

I still don't get the MGS phenomenon. Somebody at work loaned me MGS4. I sort of knew the back story, but not very well, so I read up and got re-familiarized with all the plot lines and characters. I tried playing MGS4, and just absolutely hated it. It looks pretty, but I don't get why the story has to be so stupid.

The problem is that you just read the story, so you don't know how it all fits in the universe. That's the same thing as just reading parts of a massive literature book, say like "the divine comedy" and then try to make sense out if, instead of reading and experiencing the whole.

Most people who hated MGS4 seem to follow the same pattern as you did, meaning never played the whole Metal Gear experience and then jump straight to MGS4 hoping that they would understand.

MGS4 story wasn't made for newcomers to the series, it was made for long time fans, those that could relate and connect the missing strings and tidbits of information that was left out from all the previous games. 

Sure you had read about the overall plot, but only by reading it, themes like the Patriots, the La Li Lu Le Lo, the Phylosophers Legacy and many other things wouldn't make much sense, until you actually experienced it yourself.

My opinion is that you should at least try to play the previous games in order to make sense out of MGS4 story, or at least understand it a bit better, because it may be a little bit convulted, but it actually make sense when you look at the whole scope of the series. 

GTA IV is Overrated,most of the GTA fans i know that played IV,said it sucked compared to San Andreas,but most of the non-GTA fans liked it.
Now if we look at MGS4,there are a few people who dont like it...

Oh god, now I never thought that someone would actually want skip them during their first playthrough. Well if they can't sit through few minutes of awesomeness, there is no hope for them.

i thought it was pretty good but not as good as MGS3. A bit overrated? Possibly but it depends on the person. We can all have our opinions