The main problem with Godzilla is the characters. I understand not focusing entirely on the monster for the film's run time, as Cloverfield did, but the difference is Cloverfield had interesting characters to focus on. The characters in Godzilla may have just as well been cardboard cut-outs. When the main character's brother dies in CF, we see how this traumatizes him and motivates him to save his GF. In Godzilla, Brody doesn't react at all to his father's death. It's like after Cranston died the writers forgot he was ever in the film. Compare to Pacific Rim (which I liked more than GZ14) where Yancy's death is the clear emotional motivator for Raleigh throughout the film, and other PR characters who had clear motivations, emotions, and just a general sense of dimensionality to them. Compare Serizawa from the 54' film, where he sacrificed his life, to this film where he spouts exposition and Confucian philosophies about nature. Hell, compare to Edward's earlier film Monsters, which had an excellent character arc and love story to go along with it's kaiju plot, with this one and it's 1D stock character stereotypes.
And I understand that many of the 70's era GZ films had the same formula as this film, but most of those films are Sy-Fy level B-movies only enjoyable because of the iconography of Godzilla. It was rather hard to get invested in GZ14 when none of the characters really were.