It's kind of tricky to answer this. For years, John Lackland has been seen as a bad and weak king. Some historians, including David Starkey, are sort of warming up to him now, though. This isn't to say that he was a good king, just that maybe historians have been a little too harsh in their reviews of his reign.

And in fairness, John was put into a difficult spot. His father, Henry II spent much of his reign fighting the French on the continent (and later his own sons, John included, after they turned on him). So England was facing huge financial issues from decades of constant fighting and the immense costs of supporting the armies.

When Henry II died, Richard I came to the throne, but he spent nearly all of his time fighting as well. He continued fighting with the French and famously went on Crusade, leaving John and their mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, to de facto rule in his stead. Richard's crusades and wars further drained the exchequer and necessitated more borrowing and more taxes.

Finally, as Richard was returning from the Crusade, he was kidnapped by a Germanic noble and held for ransom. The ransom was enormous, roughly 3 times the annual income for the British crown. The funds were raised by levying large taxes on all citizens (as much as 25% of people's total wealth was essentially taken); treasures from the churches and monasteries was confiscated. Richard was released and promptly went back to fighting, where he was later killed during a siege.

This all left John with an enormous amount of debt for the crown and an unhappy citizenry, both commoner and noble, over the taxes that had been levied to pay for his father's and brother's actions. So John was put into a bad spot with little to no fault of his own.

But John didn't really do anything to help his cause. Rather than work to repair the state of the realm, he continued the wars against France, but was unsuccessful. Again, wars mean taxes. Taxes for victories can be stomached by the people, but taxes for defeats will not be tolerated for long; and it didn't take long for discontent to rise.

The nobles in the country began to plot against him. In the meantime, John began a feud with the Pope, which didn't help matters in the realm.

The underlying theme of many of John's actions get down to the idea of the king have total authority versus some limits being placed on the king and some basic rights being given to the people (people meaning nobles at this point in history).

This is why the Magna Carta was drafted and signed. But then John went and appealed to the Pope (they had made ammends), and the Pope declared the Magna Carta to be null and void as an instrument. This showing of two-faced diplomacy in dealing with his own nobles only enraged them further and led to more strife in his own kingdom.

John died young. If he had led a full life, perhaps events would lead us to view him differently than we do. Maybe he would have eventually brought some stability to England. But as it is, he took the throne of a country in turmoil and didn't do anything to calm it down; in some ways he made it worse.

It's hard to say if another man in those circumstances would have done better. But it's fair to say that John didn't do well.

I recommend watching David Starkey's series Monarchy. It's pretty good. Here's a link to a short version of the episode about John.

Just to add to what has already been stated, Prince John was also commonly referred to as "John Lackland" and was given Ireland by Henry II (see: John's castle in Limerick).

In terms of popular opinion, crusaders were largely considered heroes and in this light, John would pale in comparison to his brother (although these crusades were not particularly successful).