I know this is all, like, so off topic for this thread, but wanting the old Team Dark back is a hill I will die on, damn it! ��
While I don't want to derail too far either, I do want to elaborate on this since it does pertain to the opinion you replied to in regards to my previous post (And so is kinda pseudo-ontopic?).
Shadow's character arc in SA2 brought him from a straight up villain at the beginning to a true heroic type at the end. I can excuse Heroes and ShTH because he had memory loss in those, but after that I don't even really feel like he should be an anti-hero considering he has his memories back. His personality at the end of SA2 is as such that he's even more mature and heroic than Sonic. Sonic saves the day primarily for fun and adventure, with it being the right thing being secondary to him. While this does in a way make Sonic more pure-hearted than a majority of story protagonists, Shadow outdoes this by casting aside his selfish desires and becoming a hero willing to outright die if necessary to save lives, even though at the time of SA2's ending Shadow has no true friends or family left. The entire planet he is fighting to save is composed of strangers that have at best treated him poorly if acknowledging him at all, yet he is willing to sacrifice himself for their sake.
The problem of post-06 stories being generally "Eggman is doing bad things, go stop him!" is largely a result of many of the Classic era fans complaining a lot on the internet about how Sonic games were better back in the day when that was the level of simplicity the games had. No cutscenes, no deep plots, few if any friends tagging along, just raw gameplay and a basic excuse for the gameplay to exist. Personally, I think that formula works fairly well for 2D titles such as the original trilogy, CD, Chaotix, Advanced 1-3, Mania, etc.
However, for 3D titles I generally prefer a more complex narrative. When you go from telling a more complex story between 1999-2008 (I also count Unleashed and the storybook sagas in the complex narrative era) to the more simplistic storylines of Colors-Forces, it ends up feeling more watered down than at all improved. Forces did kinda feel self aware regarding that and tried to do better, but in the process it kinda... Tripped and smashed it's face on the pavement. It ends up coming off as a borderline insulting attempt at an edgier, deeper story reminiscent of SA2 and ShTH that feels more out of touch than much else.