I'm not thrilled that they're nickle and diming with DLC character packs, but it is what it is. That's how all games are nowadays it seems. They have all 6 DLC characters on sale as a single purchase for under 20 bucks right now on xbox (both Garou and South Town), so I bit the bullet. They also supposedly tweaked the gameplay balance and added new music per the latest patch update according to the press release.
I plan on putting a lot more time into it this weekend. I haven't played it much the last month or so, but I have played through the story mode at least a dozen times, and find the game quite fun. I haven't always been the biggest KOF fan either, they're often hit or miss for me, but this one plays pretty well in my opinion, and I like it much more than the last installment which I thought was a step back from 13.