I received a PM recently asking for current insights on this topic. I'm reply here because I figure others might be interested.

The only Marriott properties that are close to downtown are the City Wall and the RC Financial Street. But, City Wall is extremely inconvenient to access, and Financial Street is simply too far away from Chaoyang to be of use.

Between the JW/RC, the Chaoyang Ren, the Capital Ren, and Marriott NE, I think the latter is the nicest property. Well, of course the JW and RC are fancier, but NE just has a really good vibe to it, and the food is reasonably priced (i.e. the Nobu at the JW is easily 3x LA prices).

But, NE is not really an ideal location for tourism because it is on the edge of town, and a 10 minute walk from the nearest subway station.

The Chaoyang Ren is a far lesser property, but its price reflects this, and it is 5 minutes closer to the subway (in the exact same area). Furthermore, Angela, its GM is one of the nicest hotel people I know. She is trying her best to make lemonade out of lemons.

While I don't really have anything negative to say about the Capital Ren, since I spend so much time there, I have a hard time getting excited about it. Well, let's put it this way; that "cool" music they play in loops gets old pretty fast.

In closing, all of the mentioned hotels are good enough. But, since they are in very different locations, and the price spreads can be enormous, I'm unable to provide a ranked list that is suitable for all people (i.e. let's continue to approach this thread on a case by case basis).