I think it promised too much. As the world's most expensive film ever, it delivers far below expectations. However, still fare better than GI Joe (the previous record breaker), which is utterly disappointing.
Although, cinema/story-wise Transformers is bad, but visually it is stunning. Not the case with Avatar. There is huge lack of creativity amongst Hollywood designers in creating alien creatures. Not to mention all aliens we see are mostly humanoid like, but the greatest depiction of an "alien" perhaps is on the movie "Alien" itself.
Alien (1979) on TV airings
by Ridley Scott
Starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, John Hurt, etc
I think most of you have seen this already. This movie is scary in its true definition. There are a lot of common objects that lacks of common description that humans fear, ghosts, monsters, aliens, but this gonna shift your fear towards the aliens. Its plot is pretty generic for most of outer space science fiction today. Set in the future as always, one of human spaceship is stranded in a planet and they found something there, another spaceship that is full of unknown, and the unknown is the source of the trouble. And there the thrill begins. The alien is so full of malicious that you would not expect a good happy-ending plot with them nor would there any magical "human-alien" relationship with such creatures that is designed to be sooo fearsome.
I gave it decent 7.5/10, this movie is just good. Ridley Scott makes his name in this genre, it thrills me.