It was basically Super Mario 64-2, and while the "go into the same barely altered level over and over again" formula was fresh in Mario 64, it was just tedious in Sunshine, especially since there were more stars to collect in each level this time. Not to mention that there was very little level variety, making it all seem even more monotonous. Also, the final dungeon/battle is terrible, as is much of the voice acting.

Same thing could be said for Galaxy 1 and 2. You revisited the same place several times.

Not quite. In the Galaxy games, you might visit the same galaxy, but the world is pretty transformed from the previous version you saw.

Yeah, either transformed, or you were given an entirely different path to follow. It was more like visiting multiple stages of the same level, rather than visiting the same location multiple times. Granted, there were levels that played out much like Mario 64 and Sunshine, where it actually was the same location with a different objective, but they were infrequent enough, and there are considerably less stars to find in each level, so it didn't really become a big deal.

Ah well... I don't have a problem with it and would welcome a Sunshine port to 3DS. The Mario 64 port on the DS was actually rather interesting as it added a crap-ton of additional content and I'd be curious what they'd do with Sunshine.