[el crufto]

Agreed.

I picked up 4ed, having skipped 3e, and never got into 2e the way I did with 1e...some items here and there. Hackmaster, love it in a big way, but its tough to keep the intensity going sometimes.

Props to WOTC for including pre-calculated stat tables. Lots of little touches like that all over. Nice.

Player guide:
- Not sure I'm a fan of 'this will be covered in future player guides'. WEAK.
- big time fan of art /layout. I found 3e to be an unreadable abomination. Cool concept, not taking away from the art direction. Like 4e better though. Usability is very high. Not really a fan of the giant hammer wielding dwarf, but I guess its a fantasy trope.

DMG:
- Very nice, great for beginning DMs. Also, good for me, not that I am some expert but because it is helping me unlearn other methods of DM'ing which may not be so suitable for D&D 4e.

MM:
- Have not spent a lot of time here.

Overall, this is no hackmaster. Falling rules don't tell how falling breaks equipment. Drowning meh. Languages somewhat neutered. Alignment, Good v Evil...ok, I guess. Room for gray? Sure. I can live wiht it.

BUT, then again, I think its good that its no hackmaster because it means there is more room for a game like HM. Obviously I haven't played 4e yet and so I can't comment too much on the rules, some of them make sense but until I see them in play I can't comment on them. I suspect I will like the new way magic is handled, though it seems like some of the detail has been aced out a tad (material components and the like).

Flips side of all this is the game seems a lot easier to homerule then prior editions. I'm still trying to figure out a way to run combat w/out a battlemat, just because I'm way to lazy to get all that stuff.

Anyway, my $0.02.