Honestly, whatever it was that I loved about Transformers as a kid (and continue to love today) was not very evident in Bay's movies. Sure, the cartoons were simplistic and cheesy, but at least I could tell what was going on, and the characters were likable and aesthetically pleasing to look at. I thought Megatron and Optimus, in general, had good, G1-like personalities. But they look like a big, random jumble of parts when they are robots. I also enjoyed the one scene where Megatron told Starscream "You failed me once again!" or whatever, but it seemed to be missing the heart of the old G1 cartoon in most cases.
I can only speak to the first film, since it was the only one I watched all the way through, but--the story was forgettable, explosions are overdone (as is always the case in a Bay movie), humor was bad and often in bad taste, acting was nothing to write home about even though the great John Turturro was involved, too many unnecessary "dramatic" pans and slow-mo shots in the Bay style, characters were not very likable with the exception of Optimus (that I chalk up to Cullen's voice), and I just didn't feel fulfilled leaving the theater. To me, the culmination of all that just made for a less than pleasant experience, compounded by the fact that it is a franchise I love and would love to see treated with a bit more care.
As for robots smashing each other, that might be OK except it just looks like a bunch of jumbled hunks of trash rolling around when they fight. I couldn't really tell what was going on half the time.
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