It's an awesome game, love the handling over Wip3out's floatiness (but I only ever played two ships on the demo, Goteki 45 and Feisar) and the weird handling on Pulse (only played Feisar). I'm fine with the upgrade system. The soundtrack is awesome (beats Pulse) and the race day atmosphere is spot on with how you see the ships make it to the starting grid. I like the weapons focused racing, because you can get some great races of attrition and when you make it to the end of those and see how many eliminations you got it feels like an achievement. It felt like a proper event (although it lacked gaps to the other racers). Also, was lurking these forums and someone pointed out something I had begun to notice, there's an actual pecking order on the grid. Xios, Pirhana and a team I can't remember always seem to be at the sharp end of the grid (I noticed I seemed to always be fighting them for first place) or I'd be up against Tigron all the time in my upgraded Feisar. Also, playing Pulse and having only 8 races isn't doing it for me, give me 16 racers for a more full grid any day.
I don't have a PS3 or my PS2 anymore (I emulate the PS2 and PS1 Wipeouts) so I can't compare to Wipeout HD or Fury.
I got into Wipeout when I got a PS1. There was a demo disc that came with it and it had the Wip3out demo and I thought this is awesome, so I played it endlessly. When I got wind of Fusion I bought it and loved, then I traded it, then I missed it and bought it again pre-owned. Got 100% on everything but Zone if I remember right, then my PS2 failed, years later built a PC and found it could emulate PS2 really well so I found the ISO for Fusion and it was like old times
So, yeah, why is Fusion hated?
EDIT: How'd I forget the bloodthirsty AI. Made it better