I personally love New Leaf, but I can see the soulless argument in one key area, and that was dialogue. It seemed like villagers cycled through their dialogue a LOT faster than in previous games (well, at least the Gamecube game, which I have the most experience with outside of New Leaf). But not just the villagers, but special characters were hit very hard too, with the little stories they had in previous games more or less gone. This especially hurt Blathers, who just... he wasn't even Blathers anymore! (I know we had the Museum tags, but I miss him blathering as his name implied). Poor Digby also had such little room to shine either...
I really hope that they fix this in New Horizons. It won't be a deal breaker if not, but that was my one real disappointment with New Leaf.
Graphically I think New Horizons looks great.