You didn’t mention the tiny pixellated boobies, which is one of the best parts when you’re 11 and it’s 1990. Something like the picture in the middle of this article:
http://reviews.cnet.com/wii-games/golden-axe-ii-wii/4505-9993_7-32463789.html

Also Altered Beast is cheesy-awesome. “Wise from your grabe!”

I used to play this quite often with friends on the Sega Mega Drive II.
We actually thought it was pretty fun, only sometimes a little frustrating and hard.
I was going to say, but which you mentioned, that it gets a lot better with 2 players.
You feel like this team, just like in Streets Of Rage of course (which I also played), and you can do a lot more fun things and combinations.
And I also actually like the style of the graphics.
Sure some things were ugly and dull about it, but it did give it this more medieval look to it.
I would have given it like a 7 or so…

I still actually have the thing with like 30-40 games. lol