DMC1: 4.5/5
The camera is horrible; the swimming was made by a toddler with no eyes; the reaper mobs were unfun and made me want to rip my controller in half, the three fights with nightmare made me want to gogue my eyes out, the final boss, albiet has a cool design, was really poorly done being such a weird gimmick boss, there was barely any story, and the Trish/Dante dynamic is next to none.
This game has a lot of issues, but yet i really enjoyed my time in this world. It feels like Resident Evil leaning into a heavy gothic art style backed by a really fun hack and slash combat system, which, while expanded on in the later entries, was still a blast, at times.

DMC2: 0.5/5
Everything people say about DMC2 is true. This is the worst game I have ever had the misfortune of playing. I don't know how Capcom thought this was okay to put out on the market, and I'm even more shocked that this got a third game. And that game ended up being a masterpiece.
The story is almost nonexistent; the villain was made by sora.ai. This shouldn't even qualify as a hack-and-slash because a majority of the game is spamming square at enemies you can't even see. The game even encourages this playstyle because most of the enemies fly, and the sword has ridiculous delay and knockback. I feel like the Netflix series director only played this game. The game offers no challenge; the only challenge is trying not to pass out spamming square for five minutes on a boss that has more HP than God himself. The music is non-memorable compared to other entries; Dante is bland and boring, the world is bland and boring, they throw the beautiful gothic art style for infected, grimy post-apocalyptic city slop, there is little enemy variety, the level design is awful, the puzzles are almost easier than the combat, the camera is somehow worse than the first game, that level with the four orbs was created by a toddler that has down syndrome with no hands, the infected helicopter fight is laughbly awful and they had the audacity to have 5 phases and you can't even see the boss until the final phase, every boss that resembles even a bit of a challenge is only due to annoying mobs that attack you off camera. By the time i got to the final boss, i wasn't even surprised that it was the worst abomination I've ever laid my eyes on. Yes lets throw heads of every terrible boss you've already encountered, give them the worst hitbox known to man so they have a 2% chance of hitting you, and let's give it 5 bars of HP just for fun. I'm actually more surprised the final boss wasn't a 12-phase duel infected chopper fight. The only reason this isn't a flat 1/10 is because of Dante's fit. Worst game I have ever played and may ever play in my life.

DMC3: 4.5/5
I love everything about this game besides the second-to-last boss. wow what a terrible fight wow wow wow, ill probably bump this up to a 5 when i delete that fight from my brain.
Writing this post DMC2 playthrough, I was naive, this is the best game ever, i love everything about it even Arkham. I would take 15 Arkham's b2b no heals no saves over that infected helicopter fight.

Failed a dare, and my sentence is a literal hell of a punishment: playing DMC 2.

DMC 1: A lot of jank and camera gets in the way, but the game has an unmistakable style that is uniquely Devil May Cry, arguably the best Dante in terms of character personality.

DMC 2: Takes jank to the next level, the combat is lifeless. Melee combat is a joke where movesets are sluggish often leading to treating enemies like sandbags, players will switch over to a DT loop where you'd build up DT then unload with the guns. Dante's personality is as lifeless as the gameplay, I see why people decide to skip this iteration.

DMC 3: Definitely the best of the 3 games, though it would have been nice if some of the moves from Swordmaster was part of the default otherwise you lose some good movesets when switching to a different style.

My advice here is to play DMC 1 first because if you skip straight to DMC 3, then you will have a hard adjusting to an older combat system in DMC 1, assuming you skip over DMC 2 then you've wasted some of your money to buy a collection to play only 1 game.