I must admit

That even though this is clearly superior to RE4, personally, I prefer RE4.

"Clearly superior"? How? Graphics and co-op? That's not that much of a difference to make it "clearly superior".

That statement makes no sense. RE4 is inferior yet you prefer it?

RE5 features better graphics, an actual plot (even Capcom refers to 4 as a sidestory), much more interesting dialogues, great characters, more weapons, treasures and emblems to find, infinite replayability, more modes, a vastly superior AI, better character/enemy models and the list goes on and on.

BUT, I prefer RE4 for a couple of reasons as:

How it handles the main characters: sure, Leon's cockiness and oneliners are ridiculous, but Chris is too damn apathetic except for a few instances. Jill, the leading female protagonist, while she's mentioned continuously (Excella actually makes fun of Chris about this;"Jill, Jill, Jill. You sound like a broken record, you know that? Just as single-minded as he said".) basically appears for like 10 minutes! Even Ada was handled better. Jill may have been better dead. Moreover, Sheva is insignificant.

Atmosphere: Too much action due to co-op and not even a creepy background music. Only the 5th chapter reminded me of the good ol' Resident Evil.

Co-op: Makes the game less scary and too action-packed.

I think Shinji Mikami's absence (former RE game series director; he had claimed he would cut his head off if RE4 was to be ported to PS2, but instead, he just left Capcom) hurt RE5 along with the racism accusations and outrage which forced Capcom to create an African partner - to accompany the white guy while killing the black people - and actually create an international Africa with black, Jews and Pakistani.

If Chris was alone, the game would have been better.

Here's one of the first trailers of the game back in 2007 when Sheva did not exist at all: