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As far as style goes, the Monstrous Manual is excellent, and I think better than 3.x and 4e versions of it. The layout is very clean, there's a decent amount of white space (which is actually white, and not some melange of earthy colours). Most of the pertinent stats are laid out on the top 3rd of the page. Most of the pictures are also on the top 3rd of the page, and the monsters are inside a box. All the text as a result is in a clean column format, rather than wrapping around the illustration.
The primary information that's given is combat and society and habitat. If there was a lot of information there, there would be very little for ecology. If there wasn't much info for combat and society, the ecology would get fleshed out. While this means you didn't have consistent information on monster ecology across the book, you got some variety in terms of combat monsters and monsters for other purposes. It was also an elegant way of using up the space, and keeping each entry on 1 page. A few entries for multiple monsters would take up 2 or more pages, but in each case it would be an entire page.
As a result, organisation was really easy. Monsters were listed alphabetically, and you could look at the top corner of the page to see which monster was there - if it wasn't the one you were looking for, you flipped to the next page, rather than scanning down to see if it starts on one page at the bottom and continues onto the next page.
The art I thought was decent - some illustrations were better than others, but for the most part they did the job, and I like the aesthetics better than Lockwood's art for 3rd Edition, while at the same time the art work was far more professional in quality than 1st Edition.
In style, there's nothing to complain about really - it's about as close to perfect as it's going to get for this type of product. An easy 5.
Substance is a bit more shaky. On the one hand, there's a lot of information, more than you're likely to use to be sure, but some of the monsters aren't going to be left unused simply because you couldn't get around to them, but because they were incomplete.
For instance, Tanar'ri (I'm probably one of the few people who prefers that naming scheme to Demon). Two were listed - Marilith and Balor. Both had the ability to gate in other Tanar'ri types (fortunately Balor and Marilith were on the list), but none of those other types were listed. At that point I felt it would be better to just not have them in the MM at all. The result would be you'd have a Balor, he's close to death, gates in another Balor. That Balor can also gate one in. Realistically, there's no way you could win, although of course if the other Tanar'ri were actually offered this wouldn't be a problem.
The same problem is present with the Baatezu, although to a lesser degree, since theres Pit Fiend, Black Abishai, Green Abishai and Red Abishai. So you can have the Pit Fiend gating in some lesser Baatezu, which at least stops being redundant, but right there on the first page they list 4 greater Baatezu (only 1 of which is statted), 5 lesser baatezu (4 of which aren't statted, all 3 Abishai just count as Abishai), and 2 least Baatezu (which aren't statted at all). I thought that was a bit insulting. At least if they're not all presented, don't make it obvious that they're being left out.
Hags were another set of monsters that were like this, but at least they seemed more complete as no others were mentioned. You had Annis, Green Hag and Sea Hag, which was a perfect set of 3 for a covey. Finding out that there were also Night Hags wasn't as annoying.
On the flip side, there were sets of monsters that were quite complete. There were quite a few Dinosaurs statted out, which should keep anyone who isn't a paleontologist happy (and even they could probably draw on their knowledge to fit any other dinosaurs in). Dragons, Giants, Beholders (and Beholder-kin) and Lycanthropes were well represented. There certainly wasn't any feeling of incompleteness there.
I'm not sure exactly how it fit in with the product schedule, as there were monsters from a wide range of campaign settings (off hand, Forgotten Realms, Al-Qadim, Kara-Tur, Greyhawk, Spelljammer, Planescape, Dark Sun, Dragonlance (sort of... due to Dragons), and Ravenloft - there might be a couple more represented, but that's a fairly comprehensive coverage of the campaign settings available for 2nd Edition). The Thri-Kreen (from Dark Sun) were even included on the cover. A lot of them were also usable outside of their intended campaign setting.
This I'd say is a good thing. If you just had the core books, the MM gave you some good material, and if you bought a campaign setting, you already had a few setting specific monsters to use right away, rather than needing to buy the campaign Monstrous Compendiums.
I think most environments were covered well. Certainly land environments were covered a bit better than aquatic, but there was still a decent selection of aquatic monsters that could be used to make a quite extensive aquatic campaign (in fact, one of my groups did this). This is where the ecology bit comes in. Sahuagin and Aquatic Elves are enemies, Sahuagin team with Sharks, Aquatic Elves with Dolphins - both are enemies of each other. There are also Malenti which are Sahuagin born to look like Aquatic Elves, not detectable by other Elves, but recognisable by Dolphins. That's a pretty good start for campaign purposes, and you can build up some underwater societies based on that. There are a variety of Fish for standard underwater natural animals, along with some monstrous underwater creatures like the Aboleth, Morkoth and Ixitxachitl. Some less strange creatures are also present. Just like land would have Elves vs Orcs, and some Hobgoblins, Goblins and Kobolds, there are the Kuo-Toa and Locathah. Griffins and Hippogriffs have Hippocampus and Sea Lion counterparts (literally a lion front with a fish back).
Forest environments were of course well covered, having all the Sprite-kin, Elves, Treants, Nymphs, Driads, Satyrs, deadly plants and more. Of course each environment had a Dragon or 3. Forests had Green, Mist and sometimes Steel dragons. Underground was also well represented, Dwarves and Gnomes, Goblin-kin, Deep and Shadow Dragons. Myconids (fungus people), other fungoid monsters, Drow, Derro, Duergar, Oozes, Slimes and Jellies.
A lot of the monsters had cross-over ability - a mountainous forest would have both mountain and forest creatures (great for political issues between Dwarves and Elves, and some territory wars between Red and Green Dragons). Any body of water near land would allow for crossover from some of the aquatic monsters, and aquatic monsters often showed up underground as well.
I think planar creatures might be a bit under-represented, so it wouldn't be enough for Planescape, but everything else should be pretty good. Really, it is quite complete in scope, but as mentioned before, some of the monsters you'll just end up not using because they're blatantly incomplete. Some might end up being useless too if you don't have Psionics rules of some sort (there's a fair number of Psionic creatures), and a few you don't always know what to do if you don't have the campaign material. For instance, Bird Maidens, which are specifically for the Al-Qadim setting, have references to being Kahina. Since I had no idea what a Kahina was, I figured I'd just handle them as a priest or druid, but the alternative was to leave them out entirely.
I had quite a few favourite monsters, that are clearly not from any sort of mythology I'm aware of, and I'll list them, to give a taste of what you'll find.
The Aurumvorax (not surprisingly it's a gold eating 8 legged badger). Given that it eats gold it's quite clearly a nuisance for dwarves and miners, making for an interesting adventure seed. They're also a valuable source of treasure, given you can use their hide as particularly strong armour.
The Displacer Beat (I'm sure this is well known), a sort of panther that's a couple feet away from where you see it. That just makes for some cool combat.
The Giff, humanoid mercenary hippos, with a fascination for things that go bang. There's a few different situations where they'd be fun to throw in, particularly a bar fight.
The Invisible Stalker, I imagine I probably just like this one because the illustration is blank. Perfect for an assassination investigation adventure.
The Mind Flayer, I figure by now everyone knows this one, but brain sucking, mind blasting evil creatures are just cool. They make perfect villains.
The Revenant. I suppose this has some origin in mythology, but it's the perfect return of an NPC villain. It's really dead, and now it's back as undead hunting the PC who killed him.
The Zaratan. A giant turtle so big it's a floating island with a full ecosystem growing on the shell.
Some of the iconic mythological monsters it also has, which I haven't mentioned yet are the Basilisk and Cockatrice (traditionally the same thing, split up as separate monsters here), Banshee, Doppleganger, Gargoyle, Genie, Golems, Gorgon and Medusa (again, splitting of the same thing), Hatori (maybe not so iconic, but still worth mentioning), Harpies, Hydra, Imps, Kenku, Leucrotta, Lizard Men, Mermen (strangely with a picture of a mermaid), Minotaur, Mummies, Naga, Ogres, Rakshasa, Roc, Trolls, Vampires, Zombies and naturally other undead.
There really should be something from that list that's interesting to use as an NPC or an adversary, and of course there's a bunch that I haven't mentioned yet. For an AD&D game, it's invaluable (you'd really be hard pressed to run something interesting with just the PHB). For another system, I'd say it's still useful. A lot of these monsters aren't described anywhere else (except other editions of D&D), and even then not, and some of them are quite creative. Some would require minimal conversion work while others would require more work, but certainly as long as you want monsters to hunt (say for a Supernatural type game), or a way of making the world fantastic, the Monstrous Manual is a good source.
Something it's not really intended for, but still has some use for (and has subsequently been done much better in 4th Edition), is mining the monsters for ideas for PC races. The guidelines in the DMG (which are decent) basically boil down to don't pick a monster that's unusually different from the PC races. So obviously all the Goblin-kin are fair game, some of the smaller Giants might be too. Humanoid animals, like Lizard men would also be good. A few of the entries even have some info for NPC monsters with character classes that make a good guideline for using them as PC races too. Half-ogre an Half-orc even have explicit rules for it (probably due to them being taken out of the PHB from first edition, and maybe the Half-ogre was just thrown in there for fun). At some point, a player will get their hands on the MM, and will want to play one of the creatures there. Some are doable, others not at all, but it's good I think to offer some alternatives; "No, you can't play a Werewolf, how about a Lesser Seawolf instead?" The Lesser Seawolf in that example might be too much for some GMs, but it lacks the protection against non-magical weapons, and shape-shifting isn't that different from what druids and some Wizards can do. Plus, it's rather plausible that a character would be infected by a lycanthrope - perfect reason for becoming an adventurer.
Given that the Monstrous Manual is supposed to be general purpose, it does its job very well, and I suppose the best testament to it is I never went out to buy any of the other Monstrous Compendium products, even though it was a bit tempting to see the complete list of Tanar'ri and Baatezu. Any of the adventures that were written with monsters not in the MM usually had them statted up at the end of the adventure anyway. The 4 substance rating is really because it's got some wasted space. I suppose you could argue that it's better to have some options than not have them at all, and some people might prefer more variety in the monsters rather than a few sets of fleshed out monsters with little to differentiate them, but there is a difference between handling it like the Hags, which just don't have all of them listed, than the Baatezu and Tanar'ri where you're basically having it rubbed in your face that you're missing some of them. Also, having two True Tanar'ri is kind of pointless, especially as the Marilith is supposed to be a general, and it's hard to be a general without an army. Some of the later MM products took this into account, and would definitely score better on substance, but of course the trade off is the less than stellar layout and style that comes with it.
Of the 3 core books from 2nd Edition, the Monstrous Manual really stands out as being the best by far. It's still useful even if you're not playing a system close to D&D, and is also one of the biggest reasons to play it - if you want to use the monsters but not go through the hassle of re-statting them for whatever game you play.
