I really, really enjoyed Fusion, but yeah, definitely could have done without a cutscene in every elevator trip. They did a decent enough job with the story, so it was hard to hate them for it, but I much preferred Prime's approach on putting the narrative in the scan details, letting you choose to explore the story as you would the planet.
And yes, Corruption hauling you off to six different planets was planets of ass. Not a lot stuck with me in that game, whereas with the first two Prime titles I can pretty much visualize the entire planet after all the exploration I did. The feeling that you were far, far away from your ship at a lot of points in Prime made it feel a lot more satisfying, as it forced you to recognize landmarks and piece together a roadmap in your mind.
Unless you're one of those ninnys that sat around rotating your 3D cybercube for half the game trying to get your bearings. USE YOUR INSTINCTS
EDIT: changed "ass" to "planets of ass"