NG3 doesn't look bad because it's not being true to its name, that's an unfair criticism, shame on anyone who uses it. The reason to be cautious should be because it looks bad on its own merits. And it kind of does.
The amount of times that camera shifts focus into cinematic takes downs is utterly nauseating. Yes, it looks flashy from a YouTube viewer perspective, but when playing the game I imagine that cinematography yanking me around more than I'd like it to. The developer said they wanted that personal, gritty feeling of gutting an enemy. Well then this new approach makes sense, but it seems they're trying to stay too similar to previous Ninja Gaiden games, and it kind of makes the whole thing look silly. You've got the same slick gameplay of the older games, but now you're constantly being removed and reentered between 2 different games.
I think they should've reduced the enemy count, and made the game more adventure like with enemy encounters being small, but very memorable cinematic action experiences. That sounds more like their initial philosophy, now it just kinda looks like a Ninja Gaiden on rails.
They also wanted a mature story, but once again proved to us all they really want is Power Rangers with gore. So now we have to sit through a bunch of bullshit, where as in previous games it was clearly ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. Giant skeletal dinosaur? Sure, let's do it.