I've been an X-Men fan most of my life. Two years ago, after Divided We Stand, I dropped all the X-books. I knew where the creative team in charge was taking the series and I knew I wouldn't like it. In my opinion, this era of X-Men that will forever go unread by me can be attributed, for the most part, to Marvel Editorial -- who regularly play the role of greedy villain in the comic book industry -- and of course, Matt Fraction. 
 
I think Fraction is a great writer; he did more for Iron Fist than any writer probably will do or has done and he breathed new life into Iron Man. And, in all fairness, I've not read most of his X-Men work. It's not the writing that I have issue with -- I'm sure its excellent -- it's the general direction of the series and characters. I have issues with the X-Men being led by Cyclops and Emma Frost, who seem to be pretty amoral (or at least they were before I stopped reading), the absence of Professor Xavier's influence, the presence of Magneto as a quasi-spiritual figure, and their base of operations being on the west coast. I have other issues with specific character's as well: Wolverine being all over the damn place, Deadpool being all over the damn place, etc... But I'll chalk these up to "things that will never change because they make a crap-load of money".
 
Bottom line: I want the X-Men back to their roots. Back to moral and social conflict, back to Magneto being the most terrifying and radical villain in the Marvel Universe, back to the X-Mansion for christ's sake, and back to being led by Xavier. Marvel has literally stripped the X-Men genre of comics of everything that made them successful.
 
This is why I enjoyed X-Men #7 so much (see my other blog post). It felt like Victor Gischler was taking the X-Men back in the right direction. I could do without valley brat Emma being there, but it wasn't a detriment. Seeing Gambit, Storm and Wolverine in NYC and dealing with Spidey was fantastic. And by the way, Gischler wrote Wolverine the way every writer should: as a member to the X-Men. Not the star of the book, not the Avenger, not the mindless tank. I love Wolverine as a character, but I hate the over exposure and trying to make the character into something he's not.
 
I hope Gischler and Bachalo continue to deliver the classic-esque X-Men stories, and I'll read the book until they stop doing so. But I also want change across the board. I'm hoping that "Year of the X-Men" will bring such a change, although I do fear that it will end up just being another stupid crossover. I want to read all the X-Books again, I want to be a fan. But I want X-men, not whatever you call what's been going on for the past 2+ years.

I'm not very optimistic right now.

Yeah, I hear what your saying.  Even though for the most part, the whole "survival of the species" thing wasn't that bad, after they defeted Bastion in the Second Coming crossover, it's felt like they defeated their Ultimate boss, so now they have no purpose.  I've not enjoyed Uncanny at since Second Coming.  The book doesn't seem to have any direction.  New Mutants and X-men have been the best.  X-Force, while entertaining, doesn't make since, since Apocalypse wasn't dead, just MIA, so why did he need to be resurrected?  Generation Hope was a another solid read, really felt more like an old school X-men book, with them rescuing mutants who are just discovering there powers.  But all in all, the X-men line needs restructuring and re-purposing.

I agree most of the X-men seem to have been screwed in recent years, Forge turned evil then killed, Xavier made to sound evil then in limbo for years, and countless villains joing the x-mens ranks. Whilst fan faves like Storm and Gambit have been pushed in the background so that Cyclops and Emma headline multiple books.

Like the poster above said the x-men need to sort themselves out.

Now that the "To Serve and Protect" arc of X-Men vol. 3 is over, I think I'll be dropping this title from my pull list. I was not happy about Emma and Wolverine being apart of this arc because I feel like they get more than their fair share of face time already. Gischler said that he did not originally intend to have Emma on this team but "some things changed," i.e. editorial mandate. Overall, I think this story was very underwhelming.