Here are my thoughts...
Old-school Sonic was short, fat and had a lighter blue. Then Sonic got his first redesign, getting taller, lankier, slimmer and got a bit darker blue. He "grew up" a bit. And now he's grown up even more, looking less like a little plushy and more like a late-teen guy. To me, it is simply a natural design evolution.

The only character I can understand people are shocked about would be Knuckles, because his whole bodytype has completely shifted. It makes sense that he is somewhat buffer than the others, since he has always been the brawler type of guy, but I do think he's gotten too buff. Maybe "debuff" him a little bit at least.

As for the overall look of the game, it looks pretty damn good, in my opinion. And as for the gameplay, it looks like something that the franchise has needed in a looooong time. I became a fan of Sonic when Sonic Adventures came out with the Dreamcast (though I have played the first games when I was a child), and I loved it. But ever since then, the franchise has only gotten downhill, with the exception of Sonic Generations which was a nice throwback to the old Sonic games we loved, however, the whole game didn't feel like a stand-alone game as such, but as I said, a throwback to the old games.

Sonic Boom looks like Sega has FINALLY woken up and are now taking the Sonic franchise seriously again! They are clearly putting alot of money and effort into this project, making a brand new game AND a matching TV show! Instead of reusing old ideas or making rehashed decisions, they have actually taken their time to make new designs and composed a new storyline to fit it which is shown in beautiful graphics.

So yeah, the characters have indeed evolved. They look older than their previous appearances and gotten a few new spiffy features, but in my opinion... It was about goddamn time that happened! Hopefully this means that the Sonic franchise will be renewed into glory! And I would actually want for other game franchises to do something alike this...
*looks at Mario's archaic design*

So kudos to you, Sega. Don't fuck this up.

At first I was like damn, they ruined it (the character designs), but I'm starting to like 'em. I'm looking forward to the game

Why is everyone wearing bandages? Seriously? I could see one person but everybody? Strike one.

Knuckles apparently decided to go out for Varsity football. He looks like a fucking jock. I don't understand the concept behind his design. Strike two.

Why the hell are Sonic's arms blue? Is it really hard to see that his arms weren't blue before? Strike three.

The only good designs are Tails and Amy. Those ones look alright.

As for the cartoon... I'm really not expecting anything good. I won't watch but I doubt it'll break the curse of video games being bad cartoons.

I agree with everything you said. I played the older games on the Genesis and the last Sonic game I actually played was Sonic Adventures on the Dreamcast. Nothing since then has really sparked my interest in the series, but this does look promising. I can see where older gamers who recall playing the genesis games might take some slight in the game's kind of cartoony design, but at the same time it also does fit.

This is really what Sega needs to bring Sonic into modern 3d games. Nothing after Sonic Adventures really worked IMO.

Only thing I don't care for is the excessive amount of tape. Like, holy crap is that all they could think of? TAPE EVERYTHING GUIZ. REDESIGNSSSZZZS.

Tails looks the best though. The goggles are cool.

I think it's an attempt to revitalize Sonic in 2014, and thus hilarious.

I honestly think this looks terribad. Gameplay looks decent but the new designs for the characters are just bleh

I think it looks cool, considering it's an alternate universe spinoff that's supposed to tie in with a TV show.

The only thing that I might be worried about is that Sonic Team isn't involved in this, because I enjoyed Colors, Generations, and Lost World. Even so, the leader of the team behind it worked on Uncharted and Jak and Daxter, so it might be cool, considering they seem to be going for a more open 3D platformer style.

Generations (which was a fine game during the 2D acts) was plagued with the same garbage that every other 3D Sonic game has had, so personally I'm glad that Sonic Team isn't involved with this one. I swear, once the Dreamcast came out Sega forgot how to make a good Sonic game. Even the first Sonic Adventure, which at the time was deemed a success, did not age well at all. Other characters' forays into 3D that came much sooner (Mario, DK, Spyro, Crash, Banjo-Kazooie) were far more fleshed out and had more to do. Bring in the god-awful camera that has become a staple of Sonic games since 1999 and it's a recipe for disaster. I hope that this new title turns out to be a solid, fun game to play, because maybe then Sonic Team will learn something.