I agree with stages and story mode.
MK9 had 25 stages and MKX currently has 13 (14 with The Pit coming as DLC).
Kinda feels lacking in MKX, imo.
As for story, while I agree that the story felt a bit short, I wouldn't have minded the story being that short it it had been better fleshed out.
MKX story gave us more questions than it answered.
Hopefully with Tri-Borg being in we'll finally get an answer as to what happened to Cyrax, even though individual character ladder endings are not really canon until the next game comes out and they either are proven true or false.
As for the roster count, I disagree.
MK9 had a starting roster of 27 characters (28 on PS3, which includes Kratos, Quan Chi and Cyber Sub-Zero), and MKX has a starting roster of 24 (technically 25 if you count the Goro pre-order), which isn't too far off from MK9.
With DLC, MK9 ended up having 32 total characters and with DLC MKX will end up having a total of 33 characters.
As for roster choice of characters, that's subjective.
I, personally, thought that MKX had too many Trilogy characters on the main starting roster (14 of the 25).
Given that MKX is essentially alternate MK4, skipped Deadly Alliance and ended on alternate Deception, I would have preferred more characters like Fujin, Bo Rai Cho, and Havik on the main roster, but we're at least getting Bo Rai cho as DLC.
when it comes to stages, I don't even count the training ground. that's just a rip off -.- I mean, it was cool to be able to use it to practice with all interactibles into account for every stage, but I don't count it as a stage per se. MKX surely lacked arenas
for the roster count, what pissed me off is how Boon himself spoke of 'thirty something' characters without ever clarifying what he meant (incl. DLC). also, they kept saying that god damn 'the select screen is not final' in every stream to salvage whatever was left for anyone that kept a shred of hope that the leaked roster was not entirely accurate. so yeah if we put all things down together, the launch roster had minus two characters, not counting Kratos but counting Goro respectively for MKX. the point is, a lot of people felt like the roster would have been so much better by including Fujin & one other NPC, my personal preference obviously being Rain. and it's true, it'd be two more characters, one with the power of wind and the other of water and lightning strikes. hell, even if it weren't Rain, I'd be surely much more pleased to see them keep their promise of a 'comparable if not bigger roster' than mk9
as for the choices, I'm all for new as long as they're characters full of creativity, characters that can attract the crowd and not generic BS like we had before (hi kobra). personally, I hated ferra torr only, I find torr to be generic looking and ferra is just a kid. the design is hideous imho. other than that, D'Vorah is fitting but I am kinda indifferent towards her because of the disgusting bugs thing but she IS well designed. Black, Kotal, Cassie and Kung Jin were my favourites. Jacqui, I didn't hate on her before seeing her and she knows how to throw a punch but meh, and I didn't like Takeda's costume, it felt generic, but the moves (whips and whatnot) were original and nice. overall, if I had the power to change the newbies, I'd keep the four I loved and d'vorah, find something else for Takeda to wear, scratch ferra torr off the face of the earth and probably jacqui too. also would change kung jin's origins, would only keep Cassie as a daughter to Cage and Sonya. like I said, they have proved they are creative, I don't see why the best they could come up with was Teen Titans MK style. there are so many brand new characters they could introduce of all ages, they didn't have to be relatives. e.g. have a Norseman fighter, give him some background story and make him hulky, not as hulky as zangief from SF, something less than that and give him some norse characteristics. have ferra torr replaced by a Sorceress with smoke and mirrors tricks, deception, stuff like that. have a new monster hulky creature thing with two heads or some shit. there is endless potential of things they could come up with it. as for the post mk3 choices lacking, I guess I can kind of justify them on some level because 8 slots were dedicated to brand new characters so going with familiar faces for the rest of the case made sense I guess, but still, they should have had faith in what they can do, they got fat cash thrown at them right now, times have changed, clearly they weren't gonna make a lame looking/fighting Fujin if they wanted to. some atrocities should never come back, such as kobra, but there is a lot of good material to use post mk3 and they only risked that through DLC
