I prefer sympathetic anti villains but if they lack evil is cool moments and the pure evil villain has them then I prefer them. evil is cool > other traits

Depends on how well they are written.

@Xaven Stelmack Same, just out of curiosity: which pair of villains would you consider to be better-written between Tony and Omar (sympathetic); and Liebert and Holden (Pure Evil). It’s something I struggle to decide for myself, as they’re all so amazingly written and crafted.

Sympathetic anti villains for me

Sympathetic villains who killed more than a hundred are much more interesting and badass than pure evil villains who killed less than 20.

Pure evil villains. I don’t like sympathy anti-villain crap.

I like fictional characters who considered as pure evil but badass and actually caused a lot of deaths and harms such as Palpatine , Joker , Bill Cipher , Anton Chigurh , Michael Myers , Freddy Krueger , etc. I don't like fictional characters who did a low effort in term of deaths and harms (compared to a lot of Near Pure Evil and Inconsistently Heinous characters who killed a lot and caused a lot of harms but have some preventions from being pure evil) , shallow and not much badass but considered as pure evil such as all of Harry Potter pure evils (except Voldemort) , all of Cars pure evils , Joffrey Baratheon , etc.

My main problem the modern anti-villain is that they seem to always try to balance giving the villain a sympathetic motivation with them being unquestionably evil.

Take Paul Dano's Riddler, for instance. He wants to liberate the poor of Gotham and turn them against the wealthy elite who've oppressed them, but does so through serial murder, terrorism that would do more to hurt the underclass than help it and is overall portrayed as an unsympathetic person.

Or Magneto. The dissonance between his sympathetic motivations and status as a villain is almost glaring.

Tony Soprano is such a good character because he can be so despicable yet so sympathetic at the same time. Hell, when you think about it, a lot of the most congratulated and popular villains happen to be the live action villain protagonist.

I prefer pure evil, they are such a treat and rare sight. sympathetic villains became so poorly executed lately that they are just boring and become horrible fanfiction material.