When in around 2000 my friend got DC, I was blown away. I haven't heard from Sega in a while, and then this. I was a bit skeptical at first, but the sleek new box looked pretty cool and cutting edge, and I was soon completely immersed into Soulcalibur, with my jaw dropped on the floor. It also had Quake 3 and plenty other games beating PC in graphics. And having not seen N64, the use of analogs felt cutting edge to me.
…At the same time, after the excitement settled a bit, I couldn't shake off the feeling that Sega's return was a bit awkward. It felt like a not-so-welcome old friend 5 years after Genesis. It was obvious that Sony was completely and irreversibly dominating at that point. And with all those ridiculous exaggerated PS2 rumors popular at the time, Sega looked like it was trying too hard to appear relevant.
Still, years later, there's very little bad I can say about DC. It was the one time Sega had near perfect hardware. Amazing graphics from day 1, no bullshit expansions, no overthought processors, 4 controller ports, etc. And tons of great games, from Shenmue and Sonic Adventure 2, to Skies of Arcadia and Grandia 2, to Crazy Taxi and DoA2, to MvC2 and King of Fighters '99… the list goes on and on.
Honestly, console wars aside: it was a great system. It was doomed from the start, but it wasn't DC's own fault. A beautiful, excellent console, which was simply not fated to live long. It was killed by the 5 years of unpopularity that preceded it.