I've played it for almost 5 hrs now, enough time to get a little fortress running (this isn't just a bandwagon or meme review) having played classic since 2012. It's the greatest game in history. If you're complaining that it costs $30, then wait a couple of weeks and the update will be available in Classic mode for free (without the new textures and music, but with all the other new GUI updates eg: using the mouse/wasd.

The rest of the review is for former classic players adjusting to the update:
Obviously when a whole lot of controls and GUI change there's always gonna be a re-learning curve, and there's a few weird things/inconsitencies in the massive redo of the systems that currently make some stuff a little more annoying to do eg:
- when placing stockpiles it's easy to accidentally esc out without clicking accept and having to redo it
- some things don't *currently* have a hotkey, like saying "accept"
-you can't hotkey in your workshops to queue up your jobs, you gotta find and click each one individually (but work orders are goated in the update so it's not a biggie).
- I think announcements are a bit too easy to miss at the moment.
but like I said these things happen in a massive overhaul of systems on an indie game and are usually ironed out pretty quick. I recommend buying it, it's DF. Or don't, and get classic in a few weeks. But it's definitely worth supporting the devs for their decade and a half of hard work.

I've played it for almost 5 hrs now, enough time to get a little fortress running (this isn't just a bandwagon or meme review) having played classic since 2012. It's the greatest game in history. If you're complaining that it costs $30, then wait a couple of weeks and the update will be available in Classic mode for free (without the new textures and music, but with all the other new GUI updates eg: using the mouse/wasd. The rest of the review is for former classic players adjusting to the update: Obviously when a whole lot of controls and GUI change there's always gonna be a re-learning curve, and there's a few weird things/inconsitencies in the massive redo of the systems that currently make some stuff a little more annoying to do eg: - when placing stockpiles it's easy to accidentally esc out without clicking accept and having to redo it - some things don't *currently* have a hotkey, like saying "accept" -you can't hotkey in your workshops to queue up your jobs, you gotta find and click each one individually (but work orders are goated in the update so it's not a biggie). - I think announcements are a bit too easy to miss at the moment. but like I said these things happen in a massive overhaul of systems on an indie game and are usually ironed out pretty quick. I recommend buying it, it's DF. Or don't, and get classic in a few weeks. But it's definitely worth supporting the devs for their decade and a half of hard work.