Wasn't a fan of Evolution. The looks and personalities (plus some of the irritating voices) were such a departure from the comics and from TAS. I haven't revisited the series in a while but Scarlet Witch and Boom Boom come to mind. *ugh*
That said I like Wolverine and the X-men a bit more. And of course, TAS is ahead of the pack.
Have known about Pryde of the X-men and its huge inconsistencies with canon (Wolverine's Aussie accent, etc) but still have not seen that. But from your post seems like you're not a fan?
Should I bother dl'ing it?
Costume-wise they were generally uninspired in XE. But then I wasn't fond of most of the costumes in TAS (Jean Grey's was a particular pet peeve-- did they have to pick colors so close to her skintone??). I think WATX got it right in that department. But I found the actual LOOK of it really refreshing. It felt youthful and fresh and for a hand-animated North American production it was REALLY well animated. It completely blows out TAS and WATX in that department.
As for the voices... welllll... a couple of friends of mine played characters on the show so I'm a little biased but honestly the only one I'd have an issue with would be Kitty, who was like, ohmigod, no way, TOTALLY like, grating, like with her teenagerness ya know? But as a kid I downright haaated a few of the TAS voices. Jean always sounded like she'd just fainted, Storm seemed to "announce" everything, and Professor X just sounded downright peculiar.
I know XE doesn't follow the comics at all but as someone who's never properly followed X-Men comics that wasn't an issue for me. Though frankly I've never understood this desire and expectation people have of adaptations to be identical reproductions of the original source. If you want DOFP to go exactly as the comic, just read the comic? Not following everything verbatim leaves room for exciting surprises beyond "how are they going to design the costume". Take
amc's WALKING DEAD, for instance. It still basically follows the comic but it's also quite clearly going its own way. I've read all the comics and I still have no idea what they're going to do each episode. It's exciting! I've never once been upset by changes they've made to the source.
When you follow everything verbatim you get
The Hobbit. Told in 8 more hours than it needs
. Which is cool if you're a fan I guess, but as entertainment to the general audience it's not ideal, and things need to be catered to the non-fans who vastly outnumber the hypercritical superfans.
And X-Men isn't one straightforward 200-page book, it's a dozen different titles all running simultaneously, with different and sometimes overlapping universes. What can possibly be considered "canon"? Are we looking at Ultimates or Uncanny? If Professor X gets killed by an Alien in Astonishing but then killed by Magneto in a separate 2-part story arc, which one is "canon"? It's just impossible to follow everything.
I know when you say "not following canon" in regards to XEvolution you're talking more about how Mystique is a principal and all the X-Men and Brotherhood are students at the same school and stuff, so it's definitely different. As a cartoon it's a really great series. As an X-Men series it's perhaps not what the comic crowd were hoping for.
As for
Pryde, yeeeahhh I'm not going to give that one any more time. It was just way too hokey and outdated for me. Couldn't tell you how close to canon it runs but if they're making Wolverine a grumpy Australian I don't imagine they care too much about the rest of it.
t:
And I just hated Scarlet Witch's look in Evolution. And IIRC her voice. I'm sorry. 
as iconic as it is!
