Well, I got mine and have been playing for the past hour. Keep in mind I'm a huge kof fan. Here's my opinion so far:
Backgrounds? Wow do they stink. I'm not fond of the backgrounds at all this year. Also, the music isn't terrible, but it's nothing to scream about this year either. The new characters are cool, but seem very different than what I'm used to. This is good news, since I would have to have the same old same old. The game seems very VERY combo oriented. I'm not sure that's a good thing. I was wipping out huge combos by almost accident with the three striker rule. That's one thing I do enjoy, and gives it a ton of depth, is the fact that you can do one person and three strikers all the way up to four people and none.
One thing I knew about, and am not pleased with, is how they changed the heads on a few of the characters. Such as Iori and Vanessa. They changed them in their normal stance, but when you walk or attack, it goes back to the normal way. WOW is that dumb. I mean, the continuity is shot because of this. Vanessa's hair is almost pure red, and when she starts to walk or attack, turns back to the 2000 way (with dark parts and more detailed). Same thing with Iori, he looks pretty cool with the new head, until you start to walk forward. If they were going to change the art, WHY didn't they change all of it?
I'm just very critical of KOF, since I love the series so much. It's very VERY deep, this much is for sure, but right now I'm saying it's no kof98. Well, back to playing!
Spike