Spoilers included within, obviously.
I don't like to make Blog posts a lot.  I don't think that whatever I have to say is usually interesting enough to warrant an entirely new blog post or forum thread or what have you.  Unfortunately, if I don't go ahead and make one large post with my thoughts on Metroid: Other M and all the claims that it's ruining Samus' character, I'm going to literally explode from the blood rushing into my heart out of anger.  It'll be messy, and I don't want anyone to have to clean that up.

I know not everyone is saying that Other M is Sexist, or that it flies in the face of Samus' character.  I just want to address some of the issues I've seen brought up so far that I disagree with.  I'll try to tackle them in large segments, but they will probably bleed into one another on several occassions.

1. Ridley Cutscene
Being Ridley's appearance, and Samus being scared into inaction at his sudden appearance.  I understand that a lot of people were angry with this one, and I understand why- Samus has been pretty consistently a total badass in all of her appearances.  To have her suddenly paralyzed with fear when Ridley shows up for what must be about the 7th fight they've had over the series seems ridiculous and comes out of nowhere, and having one of the other characters in the game appear to save her is enough to make even the most hardened Metroid fan glare with anger in the direction of Nintendo headquarters.

You have to recall, though, that Ridley isn't just any old enemy for Samus to battle, he's an enemy that is specifically related to the death of her parents when she was a child.  He's been overused in the games, to be sure, and I think it's to the detriment of the story that Ridley is reused over and over for so many boss battles in nearly every installment in the series.  In this particular instance, though, it makes sense that Samus would be more terrified of Ridley than she ever was before- as Samus herself has said, she considered Adam, her CO, as a replacement father figure.  Samus may have faced down Ridley time and time again in the past, but on this occasion she wasn't making a solo attack on a Space Pirate base- she was onboard an isolated space station with her old Commanding Officer and her old allies from her time in the military.  To make it more obvious, there is a moment during the cutscene after Ridley appears where Samus imagines her childhood self from when her parents were killed standing in her place again- Samus isn't afraid to fight Ridley, she was afraid of losing her 'family' yet again.

Some people would disagree with that, which I understand.  Samus has never been much of a talker, and especially has rarely commented on her family or any possible friends she might have.  I will point out Metroid Prime 3 as another example of Samus losing the people close to her, though- she didn't even seem to know the other Bounty Hunters that well, but as soon as she heard that they'd lost contact with them, she ran to her ship to go track them down.  Upon finding them and being forced to kill them, Samus shows increasing amounts of regret, being unable to even look at Gandrayda as she is absorbed by Dark Samus.  Samus has a long history of losing everyone around her - Her family, the Chozo, the Metroid hatchling, and even people who she only knew for short periods of time.  It's perfectly understandable that after reuniting with her old team, the sight of an enemy like Ridley who she shares a long and painful history with would be enough to make her pause.

2. Samus waiting for Authorization to use her weapons and abilities
A lot of people are confused about this one, citing that Samus is a Bounty Hunter, and that she wouldn't just follow the orders of the military because someone she knew was in charge.  They're right.  She'd follow the orders no matter who was in charge.  Samus has, at the point in the story that Other M is taking place, never directly disobeyed the Federation or any orders she received from them.  She even trusted them enough that, immediately after destroying all of the Metroids except the final hatchling, she turned it over to Federation scientists.
The idea that Samus distrusts the federation and that they are on uneasy terms was only introduced in Metroid Fusion, which takes place some time after Other M, and more importantly, takes place after Samus' CO and father figure Adam Malkovitch is killed.  Samus states that she was young and inexperienced when she had last worked with Adam- clearly, his death soured her views of the Federation to some degree, and only the discovery that the Federation was planning to use the Metroids as weapons, along with their plans to capture the X-Parasites, finally led to Samus disobeying and destroying the research facility and home planet of the X-Parasites.  In the timeline, when Other M is taking place, Samus is still clearly working with the Federation quite closely, and would have no trouble following their orders as she has in all past games.

That was long, and I probably should have broken those points up more, but damnit, it's getting late and I don't want to argue about something as stupid as people claiming Samus is a weak character.  Samus has almost completely destroyed several planets, made enemies of nearly every major faction in the galaxy, almost entirely destroyed a criminal army that was on the verge of taking over all of civilization, wiped out an entire species of genetically engineered bio-weapons and the shapeshifting parasites they were created to destroy, and killed several super-powerful copies of herself.  If she wants to be a little worried in one game that the only people she knows who haven't already been killed by her enemies might die, then damnit, she can.