I will be in the minority here when I say that I absolutely loved the first movie. I thought it was the best movie of that year, no joke. I loved it as much as Batman Begins and Casino Royale.
I thought the second movie was kind of cool but I didn't feel the love of the first.
And then came Dark Side of the Moon. Oh my god. I was so disappointed. Disjointed direction, crappy script, loose plot, bad acting, and an orgiastic overuse of Bayisms. I've never seen so many lens flares, slow motion action pieces and sweeping pans in my life. In the first movie I cared about the people and the robots. Transformers 3 was all the artificial constructs of the first two movies but done to absolute death.
At least I had a good time out with my friend, who has watched movies with me for over 25 years. His wife is having their first kid soon, and our moviegoing days are numbered. I just hope we can get in some better movies before the Alien bursts free from the her body.