I'm probably the enemy here, when I say that both AE and MK9 are unbalanced, and unfair as hell. Even SSF4, and MvC3, are unfair as hell.
I'm sorry guys, I can't even take MK9 seriously, and haven't been for a long time now, I'll do what I can and come out to the gatherings to hang out with some chill people, throw down in the game for hours to support it and those that play it cause I got a lot of respect for guys that's throwing down in the game on a serious level, especially because I seemingly refuse to and thus can't. And besides that, everyone I've met through MK9 is cool, and I'll scrap with them in any fighter or any video game from other genres if they want to.(another shoutout to R.E.L. I hope you getting Diablo 3, man)
When the game first came out, it was promising, and I practiced and I was showing some potential to be good at it. Then I stopped caring, cause the core balance killed it off for me, and I just stopped practicing. I haven't even trained a single move in the game since the first week and a half it was out. And it SHOWS. Now I just get my ass beat, and keep it movin', but it's whatever.
I remember I spent so much time on the forum talking about adjusts to risk/rewards like Kung's spin, which was only a small portion of what's wrong, but the spin was the topic of discussion at the time.
The risk/rewards just don't add up, in either game. It's a complete turn off.
Even if I'm on the end of using something that's unfair, or on the favorable end of a matchup:
Just a week ago, I was sitting next to Chewstick(Steve), and we were playing Kitana vs Sonya matchup. That matchup is completely unfair, it's obvious and plain as freakin day that Chewstick put much more practice time in his Sonya and toward the game in general, than I have/did. However, he just sat there and was struggling nonstop.
That's terrible design. I didn't even want to play that way, but he insisted that I do, so he can see if there were ways around it. I purposely played as predictable as the sunrise, and it still didn't matter.
Unbalanced games, aren't competitive. It creates the ILLUSION of competition.
I can safely say that UMK3 is/was a much better game, than all of the games I just mentioned, too. It is much better than, SSF4, MK9, MVC3, and AE.
I still got some faith in MK9 though because NRS has the means to make it right, but there's some things in the game's foundation that needs to be adjusted. I mean, why in the world are completed unavoidable(crouch or whatever) strings, I'm talking all of the hits pressed out unconfirmed, safe on guard? For real? It just doesn't work for the game. Should be mindful of having to stop the series of moves short as to not be punished with going through the motions.
Slight TL;DR:
Let me stop complaining about it. The summary of my post is that, both AE and MK9 are unbalanced as hell, but NRS has the means to fix MK9 and they should hurry, if they're capable. At the moment, UMK3 is still the king MK game, without a doubt, imo.
Balance is NOT overrated. It is still underutilized. Balance =/= lack of versatility and variety, or fun.
Balance has a lot to do with fairness and options to win with varying playing styles and interpretations from characters selected.
If someone put more valuable time into a game and character, they should be the winner more times in the session, because that's what the valuable time means. Matchups should not dictate that, otherwise that is a lack of balance and poor design to create the illusion of balance and underdogs. An underdog should be the player not expected to win, winning, not the character.
No I'm not paying for AE, a game purposely made with poor design choices, because the devs think that's what some of us want(I don't).
A small aside: I think Scorpion is probably the most balanced character gameplay wise, on the whole roster.
*Goes back to playing Sheeva Kombat MINE*
But let's rightfully compare shall we? You just named 5 MK characters. 3 of which you are underestimating greatly to say they are completely "useless". But whatever, let's pretend those 5 characters you named are indeed useless and unviable. That's 5/28 characters, so almost 20% of the cast. Now, we know about half of the AE cast is not really tourney viable (C and D tier). That's around 20 characters on a total of 39. Yeeeaaaaah... Point made. 
