The fanchise kind of lost its identity after MK9. Starting with MKX, the games start to take themselves more seriously and lose the cartoony/arcadey tone of the original. The midway games and 9 feel like the video game equivalent to popcorn flicks, whereas the rest feel like they've aimed for a more dramatic and realistic (I'm using that word loosely) feel.
Neither option is bad on the surface, but I do feel myself drawn to the older games more than the newer ones. The midway games are why I got into the fanchise in the first place.