Vampire Fail
In my opinion, vampires fail harder.
Mostly due to the ongoing emasculation of them in literature.
Vampires are monsters. They are scary beings. They hypnotize and seduce you to drain you of all life-blood. They creep in the night and you can never see them coming and once they're there, you can't fight them.
This is how vampires are supposed to be written. They are scary, they are fierce and they are ferocious.
There are only a few clues as to who is a vampire and who is not as well. Mostly the "only appearing at night" part but other mythos can be used, such as not casting a reflection in a mirror.
They have weaknesses to help fight against their dark and dangerous nature, because no monster is indestructible (Note: screw you Skyline.) It doesn't matter which mythos you believe. Maybe garlic makes them run because of its powerful odor. Maybe silver burns them. Perhaps the cross frightens them. (In this respect, I give the greatest bow to Richard Matherson, who wrote that vampires are scared of the symbol of the religion that they believed in real life. So if you were Jewish in real life, as a vampire you still fear the Star of David, instead of the cross.) But for the most part, two things do not change.
1) A stake through the heart will kill a vampire. 2) Daylight will burn them to a crisp.
Monsters are no fun if we do not fear them at least a little. Fine, maybe make them extremely handsome in order to lure their prey and hypnotize them (so long Nosferatu.) Maybe make them super strong, so they are harder to kill (making the staking in daylight the best option.) Maybe make them inhumanly fast, or give them the shape-shifting abilities. This makes that whole "it came out of nowhere" thing more believable and makes them more frightening.
I will even take them using magic amulets to survive in the sun. If I'm looking into a world that believes in vampires, magic can exist too without me questioning it much. I will take them staying out of the sun but not falling into the death sleep. They're supernatural, you can only sleep so much. Not too much of a stretch.
But above all, they crave blood. To rob a vampire of that, and he is no longer a frightening supernatural monster. He is merely a craptastically written rip-off (I'm looking at you too Louis, not just the Cullens.)
On top of that, we're taking away the monstrous aspects of their personalities. It's one thing to put vampires as main characters and to give them human traits, to make them try to hold on to the humanity they once had. But, to think that they remain completely human inside despite the monstrous changes they've been through is asking me to believe that traumatizing events don't psychologically affect the victim. They have changed into demonic creatures of the night, whose only thought is of blood and who will stop at nothing to sedate the craving.
They are not creatures to fall in love with and want to become. They are damned creatures of the night to be feared.
At least werewolves get to keep their animalistic side.
EDIT: In light of some recent comments, I feel I should say a couple more things.
True, there is no one way to write anything. In terms of the mythos, it is up to the writer to stipulate the conditions. However, please don't contradict your mythos and please, dear Gods above, give your characters some flaws! It annoys me in anything when something is basically indestructible. That is nowhere near entertaining. Yay, you're perfect. So what? Give me a downside; something to balance it out. (As a side not, if I remember correctly, those vampires that choose not to drink human blood and only drink animal blood (in some literature) find it has some downsides in terms of their powers. This I don't mind. Again, however you write them, give them a weakness.)
Also, I particularly do not like the idea of vampires that are too human. Mostly because of everything that happens during a change. MOST of the time, a vampire doesn't change into a vampire peacefully. Heck, the change would be no fun if it was peaceful and easy. There is a lot that goes on and it can be pretty painful. Not to mention the trauma that goes along with this sudden change in yourself. Even if you were the most peaceful person on earth, at the very least your mentality is going to be screwed with by this new desire to kill any living thing that has blood. It's a wonder most people have not written the insanity that a new creature of the night must go through facing that right there. (I'll give Anne Rice some props because she kinda at least touched on that.)
The results of that change are monumental, and not just to your physical body. Your mental state must go through a great change. Suddenly you have this almost unsatisfiable craving for blood. If you embrace this, then chances are you are going to become a horrific murdering machine. If you try to fight it, you'll probably drive yourself bat-shit insane with a good chance of suicide coming into play. Even if you find some of your humanity later on and quit killing, how do you now live with your new sense of morals?
See, I'd be much more into fiction that portrayed this kind of vampiric internal struggle than the crap they keep putting out. This is what would make a vampire protagonist much more interesting. At least the monster aspect of it, the antagonist side, is a whole lot more entertaining.
Mostly due to the ongoing emasculation of them in literature.
Vampires are monsters. They are scary beings. They hypnotize and seduce you to drain you of all life-blood. They creep in the night and you can never see them coming and once they're there, you can't fight them.
This is how vampires are supposed to be written. They are scary, they are fierce and they are ferocious.
There are only a few clues as to who is a vampire and who is not as well. Mostly the "only appearing at night" part but other mythos can be used, such as not casting a reflection in a mirror.
They have weaknesses to help fight against their dark and dangerous nature, because no monster is indestructible (Note: screw you Skyline.) It doesn't matter which mythos you believe. Maybe garlic makes them run because of its powerful odor. Maybe silver burns them. Perhaps the cross frightens them. (In this respect, I give the greatest bow to Richard Matherson, who wrote that vampires are scared of the symbol of the religion that they believed in real life. So if you were Jewish in real life, as a vampire you still fear the Star of David, instead of the cross.) But for the most part, two things do not change.
1) A stake through the heart will kill a vampire. 2) Daylight will burn them to a crisp.
Monsters are no fun if we do not fear them at least a little. Fine, maybe make them extremely handsome in order to lure their prey and hypnotize them (so long Nosferatu.) Maybe make them super strong, so they are harder to kill (making the staking in daylight the best option.) Maybe make them inhumanly fast, or give them the shape-shifting abilities. This makes that whole "it came out of nowhere" thing more believable and makes them more frightening.
I will even take them using magic amulets to survive in the sun. If I'm looking into a world that believes in vampires, magic can exist too without me questioning it much. I will take them staying out of the sun but not falling into the death sleep. They're supernatural, you can only sleep so much. Not too much of a stretch.
But above all, they crave blood. To rob a vampire of that, and he is no longer a frightening supernatural monster. He is merely a craptastically written rip-off (I'm looking at you too Louis, not just the Cullens.)
On top of that, we're taking away the monstrous aspects of their personalities. It's one thing to put vampires as main characters and to give them human traits, to make them try to hold on to the humanity they once had. But, to think that they remain completely human inside despite the monstrous changes they've been through is asking me to believe that traumatizing events don't psychologically affect the victim. They have changed into demonic creatures of the night, whose only thought is of blood and who will stop at nothing to sedate the craving.
They are not creatures to fall in love with and want to become. They are damned creatures of the night to be feared.
At least werewolves get to keep their animalistic side.
EDIT: In light of some recent comments, I feel I should say a couple more things.
True, there is no one way to write anything. In terms of the mythos, it is up to the writer to stipulate the conditions. However, please don't contradict your mythos and please, dear Gods above, give your characters some flaws! It annoys me in anything when something is basically indestructible. That is nowhere near entertaining. Yay, you're perfect. So what? Give me a downside; something to balance it out. (As a side not, if I remember correctly, those vampires that choose not to drink human blood and only drink animal blood (in some literature) find it has some downsides in terms of their powers. This I don't mind. Again, however you write them, give them a weakness.)
Also, I particularly do not like the idea of vampires that are too human. Mostly because of everything that happens during a change. MOST of the time, a vampire doesn't change into a vampire peacefully. Heck, the change would be no fun if it was peaceful and easy. There is a lot that goes on and it can be pretty painful. Not to mention the trauma that goes along with this sudden change in yourself. Even if you were the most peaceful person on earth, at the very least your mentality is going to be screwed with by this new desire to kill any living thing that has blood. It's a wonder most people have not written the insanity that a new creature of the night must go through facing that right there. (I'll give Anne Rice some props because she kinda at least touched on that.)
The results of that change are monumental, and not just to your physical body. Your mental state must go through a great change. Suddenly you have this almost unsatisfiable craving for blood. If you embrace this, then chances are you are going to become a horrific murdering machine. If you try to fight it, you'll probably drive yourself bat-shit insane with a good chance of suicide coming into play. Even if you find some of your humanity later on and quit killing, how do you now live with your new sense of morals?
See, I'd be much more into fiction that portrayed this kind of vampiric internal struggle than the crap they keep putting out. This is what would make a vampire protagonist much more interesting. At least the monster aspect of it, the antagonist side, is a whole lot more entertaining.