I've seen a lot of people defend the choice of the show to make an entire caste of good demons while the main antagonists are humans as it follows what was established in the source series. I would like to dispute this.
The problem is that the show addresses what "goodness" and "humanity" in political terms while the games have always focused on it more philosophically or spiritually. Humanity is unambiguously a good thing in DMC, its what makes Dante more power than those without it, even the like of Urizen and Mundus. The demons that become "good" are actively fighting against their nature, and in doing so they achieve "humanity". When Dante says "Devil's Never Cry" he mean that anyone that is able to cry for another person has humanity, which is why he uses it to comfort Lucia and Trish. It doesn't matter that they're full blooded demons, the fact they can cry is proof enough that they have humanity.
There's the example of Brad from the anime, a demon that fell in love with a human that has been used as an example. People forget that Brad was sent in to infiltrate and kill for his demon master, and only after falling in love with Mayor Hagel's daughter did he rebel. He was abused and trod on by more powerful demons yes, but he still followed any order they gave him. If not for the mayors daughter, he would have gone along with the murder of humans without a second thought, it's only after he started caring for someone else that he had a complete change of heart and was willing to let Dante kill him rather than hurt someone else. And these are meant to be the exception, not the rule. Out of all the demons in the series, you can count the number that actively turned away from evil on one hand.
Then there are the human antagonists. Every single one of them abandons their humanity for power or greed, Dante outlines this to Agnus after the boss battle in 4.
"You surrendered your humanity. It's that simple." "But you are not human...! So why am I inferior?!" "You assume humans are weak... Ok yeah, their bodies may lack the physical ability of a demon. But humans possess something that demons don't."
And Nero repeats this in the final battle with Sanctus.
"The power of Sparda... why won't you give me strength!? Am I not worthy!?" "Never could take those legends too literally. But I do know that Sparda had a heart. A heart that could love another person, a human. And that is what you lack."
Arkham, Arius, Agnus, Sanctus, all of them abandoned their humanity. That is why they are the antagonists, because they are the opposite of what the heroes stand for - the strength of humanity. They say "Humanity is nothing but weakness and can never stand up against us", which is rejected by the message "the human ability to care is greater than any power you could gain by abandoning it." This is the whole point of Dante and Vergil's rivalry, Vergil rejected his humanity in pursuit of power, and in the final battle despite both twins being equal and Vergil holding the Force Edge, Dante is able to win because he holds on to his humanity. This is emphasised again in DMC5 when Urizen eats the fruit of the Qliphoth and gains the ultimate power in the eyes of demonkind, but is still utterly defeated by Dante. It's only when V, who was able to rediscover his humanity, reunites with Urizen that Vergil becomes Dante's equal again. In terms of power adding V to Urizen is like adding a drop of water to an ocean, the only thing he add to Urizen is humanity, but that's what allows him to cross the canyon between Urizen's Qliphoth boosted power and Dante.
This is what the series was about - the strength of the human heart.
On the other hand, we have the show where humanity is villainous, and there are good demons, but how is it different? Well, the good demons are just that; they are inherently good. It's in their nature to be good. When they show kindness or compassion for someone else, it's not them defying their nature and showing their strength of character. When a demon cries in the show it's nothing special, they cry all the time whether if its from having a family member die or begging for mercy or when their about to be killed by the american military. Crying isn't a sign of the quality of their soul or ability to love, it's just something they do now.
As for the humans, when they do something evil it's not because they abandoned their humanity, but rather because they are following their human impulses. Why does America invade the demon world? Because they're greedy and want to colonise it. Why do they gun down the good demons? Because they're hateful and narrow minded. Why do they betray and manipulate? Because humans are untrustworthy. The humans of the show are evil because they are human, which is a direct contradiction with the core thesis of the series.
And there are no humans in the series that show this value of humanity. Mary is actively complicit with atrocities along with the entirity of Darkcom, Eva's dead, Kalina Ann is also dead, so's the quantum scientist, Enzo's a scumbag underworld dealer and also dead, and every other main human is used to show the flaws of humanity. The only unambiguously good human is the mother who begs the demons to spare her daughter but she's a side character that doesn't even get a name.
And what's worse is that Dante isn't the champion of humanity. I don't mean this in the sense that he's the champion for the human race, but none of what motivates him is because he values humanity. He fights demons because they hurt people, and once the plot gets going it's all focused on his power as a demon. His devil trigger unleashes his anger and hate which he struggles to control, and he doesn't fight the White Rabbit because he believes it's his responsibility as the Son of Sparda but because he wants his necklace back. Even when he defends Sparda, it's more of him defending that he didn't fuck up rather than him upholding a legacy of heroism. The White Rabbit being human has no influence on him, he doesn't care either way. Dante being the Son of Sparda isn't a character trait now, it's a plot device to explain why the White Rabbit involves him in the plot.
By removing Arkham's relevance to the plot we don't get how Lady's sense of responsibility for her family changes Dante for the better, by removing Sparda's change of heart being unprecedented and special we don't see the core theme of the ability to care being what defines humanity, and that all has the knock on effect of making Dante become the hero not because he cares for humanity or because his own humanity drives him to do good, but because what would happen if he didn't was just bad.
And the choice to make the whole thing wrapped up in an Iraq war analogy twenty years late where they compare real life refugees to the demons you slaughter in the games is really stupid at best and outright offensive at worse, but that a discussion for another time.
