[quote name='Thrinn']Is the gameplay of DOA5 as counter-heavy as previous installments?[/QUOTE]
My only knowledge of previous installments is DoA Dimensions, and it appears less counter heavy than that. In Dimensions there were basically three counters back+H, down-back+H, and up-back+H, which countered your opponent's mid, low, and high strikes respectively. Now there is an additional counter that can be executed by pressing forward+h which counters mid kicks only (and back + h no longer counters mid kicks). Basically, you can't get as many counters by spamming back+h since that won't work on kicks anymore. long combos of the same strikes can still be easily countered (e.g. PPPPP is pretty easy to counter by spamming back+h) so the importance is on mixups, juggles and combos with strong strikes that put your opponent into a critical stun where they can't execute holds.
I hope that answers your question!