MK9 was peak MK. But good luck ever getting a game as outrageous and fun as that one was in 2019. Now instead of over the top action and bombastic overpowered villians and heroes we get Special Forces Marvel Kombat with no flavour of passion or excitement MK9 or even the 3D eras have. Yea MK11 has it's moments, but the gameplay is so simplified and stale after just 3 months that people are crying for either a balance patch or new characters.
No insane run cancels overhead mixup, cancel pressure, kabal run cancel staggers that made the past two games so exciting to watch and play, even when you were getting your ass kicked online. No now we make everything streamlined and easy, with a super move that gives the player second and third chances when they are doing everything wrong that cleaves 30% or more of the opponents health, that recharges even if missed or blocked.
And even that is ok if MK11's gameplay wasn't just so cookie cutter and boring to watch and play. No individuality in how everyone plays, same old strings into combos and enders and same tactics used for every character. You would never get something like a Semiij Mileena type of divergent playstyle in MK11 because they are all so samey it's ridiculous.
No special gamemodes or unique and fair challange towers, instead we get just ToT (broken and unbalanced even post patch) and Ai Battle (because who wants to play the game they bought to earn rewards, let the comp do it for ya). Every aspect of this game was made with the big WB suits pushing for safer gameplay for the casuals, and to get better numbers at tourneys, because better numbers mean more $$. And to use things like ToT and the FOMO aspect of KL to get players hooked and playing long after the well has run dry, and that time is slowly creeping up.
TL:DR: Mk9 was peak Mk and it will never go back to that because $>Fans