See, the problem for me, concerning Wolverine's arc as a character in the films is that things were handled so poorly in X3 and Origins, (worse in Origins) I just don't care all that much.
In Origins, we needed to see Wolverine at his darkest. In the comics, Logan was not a nice man when he worked for the government. He killed a lot of people, and a part of him liked it. It set the groundwork for his struggle with the animal. And then all the intense physical and mental abuse he suffered during the Weapon X bonding process nearly drove all his humanity away from him.
Once you understand this, we can see why Wolverine has such a hard time with his animalistic nature. The problem with these films is that this issue was either
A.) Never addressed, as the first three X-men movies completely ignored it
B.) Handled extremely poorly, as in Origins.
This is why I have a hard time getting excited for this next Wolverine movie, or the X-men first class film. It's because these films are connected to a film universe I'm not a big fan of. I was okay with the first two X-men, but Origins and X3 put a bad taste in my mouth. Origins more then anything. The only real problems I had with X3 were Cyclops, "killing" professor X, and Wolverine apparently channeling Cyclops' ghost and turning into him.