I've noticed that in comparison to AM and AMII Toys in Space is rather considered as not too good, or even terrible part of the series (at least according to opinions I've read here and there). It's a bit surprising for me though - I have played a bit in SP campaign, as well as in Battle Mode (with bots) and... well, can't say that there was something particulary bad. I can understand that some people were rather not too happy with this alien stuff (it's debatable for sure), but other than that? It was still released before this huge flood of Army Men games in 2000-2003, so I'm even more surprised.

I can't say for sure, mostly because I hadn't heard any opinions on the series until recently. However, from my own experiences, the only reason I can think of is difficulty. Maybe when I play through them again I will think differently, but based purely on memory, it seemed like Toys in Space was significantly more difficult than Army Men II (I can't see the point in comparing either of those games to the first one, since there is a difference in play style).

Is that the reason? I don't know, but it's the only explanation I can think of.

Well Army Men Toys in Space didn't flow right. The game instantly launched you into harder enemies that weren't present in the First 2 Army Men games and people generally disliked it because the first two Army Men lead you first to easy enemies than later on to harder enemies. Also the way Sarge moves was kinda of odd and how slow he moved compared to Army Men 2. In addition the game is really cheap being instant killed by nothing kinda sucks and how weak you felt even though you had a pretty good team. The User Interface was also bad for someone who has played Army Men 2 constantly it just felt weird not using the hotkeys to rally everyone up also the setting of the game wasn't that bad I actually liked it but for a lot of people thought it was silly. But I thought Toys in Space was okay completely different from the Army Men 1 and 2 sure it had its quirks but I think how the game is played and how hard the difficulty even on "Easy" mode really turned off some people to the game but multiplayer is pretty fun.