Wasn't the lack of innovation most people, even diehard RE fan's main criticism for CV?
When it first came out, I remember that there were four major criticisms on CV above all others, and while three of them are valid (problems with the censorship, story, and level design), it's the mechanics that are the most contentious part of the game. Lemme focus on the weapons in particular a moment.
If you came to CV from RE3, the game feels feature-crippled because all of the cool shit that RE3 had, like the shitload of new weapons and new implementation for old ones (custom ammo for the pistol and shotgun, the new way grenade rounds work, the new Mine Thrower weapon, etc), as well as new combat mechanics that aren't in CV, like dodging, environmental attack objects, and so on.
Even if you came from RE2 or RE1, however, it feels like a downgrade because the game's pacing is all out of whack, and all of the new weapons are either limited (you get them once and no more ammo once it's all gone), suck (Crossbow), give no indication for what they fucking do (Gas Rounds), and even the ones that are decent are plagued by ammo starvation and terrible placement. You go through well over half the fucking game before getting CV's hilariously underwhelming shotgun. Assuming you didn't softlock yourself out of it (which is
very easy to do in CV), the Magnum is basically at the game's end.
Let's take a brief look at some of CV's new weapons:
Sniper Rifle - Used for Noseratu fight, and never again
Linear Launcher - Used for last boss, and never again
Gold Lugers - You never get the chance to actually use it in the main game.
Rocket Launcher - Bonus for beating CV with an A-Rank. You never use it in the main game otherwise.
Sub Machine Guns - Briefly used by Steve. You will never see them again unless you beat an optional boss and acquire them again from the crypt.
.....This accounts for over a third of the weapons in Code Veronica.
