I got a hot take; Sonic Heroes is severely underrated. I played it again for the first time in like 8 years a while back. It was surreal; the Internet had re-conditioned me to hate it but I had so much fun playing it again. The game's structure resembles that of the classic Genesis games, with the two stages and a boss, and the level design gets really creative. The game's also got a much lighter approach to story, which is really interesting to me considering the early 3D era of Sonic, from Adventure to 06, tried to tell more complex and serious stories. And the music is really damn good; I'd forgotten how fucking awesome the music in the rail and mansion levels are.
I was also playing the game on PS2, which, from what I can tell, is the worst version by a significant margin ( running at 30 fps vs the 60 found in other versions, sound effects that are straight up absent). I dunno, even in its gimped state I was really enjoying it.
This isn't to say there aren't severe problems, because there most certainly are. The special stages are the absolute worst in Sonic history, especially the last few. And the game is pretty repetitive with all the teams navigating the same levels. The individual levels are different and they do try to mix things up, but they end up feeling like you're just doing the same thing again and again. The process of unlocking the final story is painful because of this; it's almost not worth 100%ing the game (I kinda quit halfway through Team Chaotix, though I also hate their mission-based levels).