After fiddling with 3D models, this is what I think
The current 3D models are not bad. The performance is the issue, but that's going to be fixed once devs go through them and I'm not too worried about it. Especially, the new 3D zombie modeling is awesome, and now it feels more tense striking against zombies.
That being said, the player model needs some work. Quality is not the issue. The issue is the character's movement. The same reason that makes new 3D zombies so much better makes character movement uncanny.
Try this: wave your hand in front of your eyes. You'll realize that as you flail your arm around, none of your body parts move with uniform motion. But, the current character and zombie models do. It creates uncanny valley. This is the shear reason why it makes good zombies and terrible character. You should be experiencing uncanny valley towards zombies, but not to your character.
I really hope that the devs would fix the motion based on actual human motion. Maybe one of the devs can record himself swinging stuff around and fix the motion accordingly.