They threw everything but the kitchen sink in that one, with just about every character from the SFII and it's many iterations in there. The look of the game is subjective (I though it looked fine, but SFA2 may have looked better), and the gameplay was, well... They tried to take the best of SFA2 and the regular SFII series with the various 'ismz' (which changed the supers you had available and some move sets, if I remember). It gave a lot of variety, but maybe too much. It was as if they started with the vs. series (MvsC) and paired it down to match the SF style games. Not that it was bad, because it was fun as shit (and seeing Charlie vs. Guile was a nice touch).

SFA2 just felt right. You had the good core of original people, some decent new guys (Rolento was funny with that zip cord) and just played as tight as a SF game should. It was as if they took the SSFIIT setup and gave it the Alpha treatment. The dramatic (tag team) battle in the home version also set it off (Akuma was KILLER on there...)