Curious. There are only a handful of posters in this thread it seems like...
Anyway...
*I actually think it is extremely admirable and responsible of Cox and MS not to stick with Castlevania and their version of it. Castlevania has always been best when no one had a monopoly on it. The concept of it is very fluid in its execution, allowing for many different takes. I honestly think the concept of a timeline has become superfluous--it's really at the expense of the franchise long-term. You can't solve gameplay with story; these are games, not movies or novels. Regardless, if one person had been in charge of Castlevania always, it's far less likely that we'd have had the fun variety we did in the 80s and 90s. For instance, Super Castlevania IV and Bloodlines are equally valid, but distinct takes on the same source material; and the same could be said for bigger outliers like Simon's Quest, SotN (for its time), CV64/LoD, etc). If given the opportunity, trust, and resources, I'm positive there are other, equally valid ways to capture the future of Castlevania in 2D and 3D, and do it in ways that exceed our expectations.
*I think the "future timeline" seen at the end of LoS will be at least a part of LoS2. This is the "conclusion," so it has to deal with that. Essentially, it's like getting the 1999 battle of this timeline. One wonders if the "new threat" could include modern weaponry and soldiers...Wouldn't surprise me given that this LoS series has taken some influences from the Underworld movie series already.
*Dracula getting his hands dirty, as someone noted earlier, actually is reminiscent of Sauron's rampage from Lord of the Rings: FotR--big evil dude gets into the middle of a siege on his tower and sends armored knights flying around in clumps like bowling pins.
*If Alucard is a mirror image of Trevor as some say, maybe he isn't Trevor, but Trevor's own "Lord of Shadow"? (The series has a strange title if there is only one Lord of Shadow left for two of the three games; especially since that Lord of Shadow is Dracula).
EDIT: To my first bullet point reply, I have to add that I get the feeling that Lords of Shadow and Lords of Shadow 2 were ultimately attempts to make Castlevania palatable to modern gamers who have a fixed (perhaps even limited) image of what "action games" are, due to titles like God of War. Konami wanted an answer to that trend/their own dog to put in that race. On the other hand, I get the feeling that Mirror of Fate is more of an attempt to please a wider audience and keep Castlevania relevant in the portable market, while rebuilding the brand's overall presence/frequency in the overall marketplace.