I think that the villain was mainly a vessel to get things going, and that they purposefully didn't expand on him too much so that he didn't detract from the character development of the main characters. Think of 2009's Star Trek, where Nero wasn't a bad villain but he didn't carry the movie, since the film was mainly about Kirk and Spock, whereas by the time Star Trek Into Darkness rolled around they had room in the narrative for a more attention-grabbing villain.

Differing from your opinion, I would recommend it even if you haven't been following the Marvel cinematic universe by the virtue that it's a large scale Flash Gordon kind of space opera. That genre doesn't roll around to often, and people who are fans of it, such as myself, certainly have something to look forward to. I think that the film is easy enough to follow even if you haven't seen any of the other films, and it's not like it gives away huge spoilers (let's face it -- everyone knows that Loki launched an attack on New York in The Avengers). Pop culture osmosis should keep even the casual and "uninformed" viewer up-to-date enough to follow what's happening.

And yes, I'm totally excited for Guardians of the Galaxy. It looks like my kind of science fantasy.

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While I do agree with your Star Trek point to a degree, I still felt as though Nero was fleshed out as a character; I could understand his motives and why he reacted in such a way, and for me it made the climax of the film that much better.

While it was refreshing in Thor: The Dark World to have a villain that didn't have any real relation to the main character (outside of the main character trying to stop him), I would have liked for Malekith to have been fleshed out more as a character as well.