Metroid actually shares its debut year with Zelda, so it's also Metroid's 30th anniversary.
In all honesty, I actually really liked how the gameplay of Fedration Force looked. The concept of a multiplayer Metroid is intriguing to me. I think people have been overreacting since day 1. We literally know nothing about the game and people are already calling it the worst game since Other M.
The worst part is that because everyone is jumping on the hate bandwagon (all based on a 50 second trailer), I feel like this game is doomed to fail. Reviews are going to mimic the thoughts already out on the internet IMO, so I really do feel like there's no hope for this game to do well. It makes me sad, really.
I don't know about anyone else, but I seem to find a bit of humor in the whole premise of FF. Just think about it, you got these four GF Trooper morons scrambling around trying(and maybe failing)to complete their tasks at hand, couple that with the game's toonish art style, and maybe imagine trooper callouts for those moments when someone's being a dumb***(like when that one guy got himself trapped in the cage with the monster in the footage we've seen so far), and the comedy pretty much writes itself. I can only imagine the hilarious situations that will go down in online games. That's one of the reasons I may pickup the game whenever it hits shelves.
As for why it's so hated right now, I've heard a few reasons. For one thing, it's not the Metroid game people have been waiting for(myself included), which makes them salty. I've heard another theory that this is not a spin-off and more of an indication of Metroid's future. One of the most obvious reasons is the art style, which has gotten people all riled up for whatever reason. Couple all that with the bandwagon effect, and, well.....you know the rest.
Personally, people are getting bent out of shape for no reason. I wholeheartedly believe that FF is a spin-off through and through, and the benefit of a spin-off is having more freedom to experiment as opposed to the mainline games, which have to follow more specific guidelines. I'm just holding on to hope that we'll have a true Metroid in the near future that doesn't turn out like Other M.