Actually, recommending the DC port for 2001 is very very easy. It's way better. Not to mention one of the coolest bonuses is a puzzle game that is like a crazy cross between puzzle fighter and puyo puyo 4, while not playing quite like neither.
You select from any of the 40 or so characters in 2001, and you go at it. There's of course the ability to go solo, vs. CPU, or vs. another player. The idea, in vs., is to be the first to clear the board. As you clear pieces, you build up power meter. You can use 1 of 2 supers for any single level of bar, or chew up 3 bars for an SDM. Each character, in the game, has their own mix of different style of attacks for their supers and SDM. Some attacks are shared, but the overall combination of attack types are char-specific. Kind of like Puzzle Fighter, when you make an attack, your character is shown making the attack on the opponent, and some effect is done on either yours or your opponent's board. Not all attacks are offensive, some are defensive too. (or meant to help you out instead of hurt the opponent, per se). And given the killer character roster of 2001, there's definitely room to pick from your favorites.
Even so, it's not quite like throwing down in KOF 2001, but the puzzle mode makes one heck of a distraction. Another thing is the copious use of classic KOF stages for the DC versions, which can be used in both Practice and versus (even for KOF 2000). Even neater is that there's certain special things that are only possible on some certain vintage stages. Nothing too game-breaking, but one could possibly take advantage of it. Oddly enough, the PS2 port left all those vintage stages off of those ports. In KOF 2000 DC, you had to complete all puzzles to get the full effect, but if you wanted to see vintage stages in vs. mode, you simply had the challenging player pick a Striker from a series that would call out the stage. Fight in Art of fighting stage from KOF 95? In a Kizuna Encounter stage? Fight in Nakoruru's Samurai Shodown 1 stage? Fight in Kaede's Last Blade 1 stage? Wanna fight on a Metal Slug stage? And in most stages, once you've unlocked everything in puzzle, they come complete with the actual music that played for that stage. KOF 2001 DC had 2 sets of 2001 stages (The special DC versions which typically included parrallax scrolling, and the original arcade ones) plus the vintage stages from various years of KOF, but no vintage music this time. The difference is that the special stages are unlocked much earlier. I don't think there was much of a requirement at all, to get them.