Played 4E for the first time last night.
Saw and handled the books for the first time too.
DM who usually shuns miniatures felt he had to use miniatures.
I thought the layout of the exploits and abilities was overly similar to the little cards that come with the miniatures.
Looked like you could replace your character sheet with a labelled card case of pre-packaged abilities.
The art work is of high quality but had so much cleavage on show, I felt it was tarty. And I really don't like the dragon born: like a cross between Barney's girlfriend and a pangolin.
The equipment list, with its 50gp plate armour looked overly stylised and not like part of a fantasy world.
We fought lots of things but little to no non-combat stuff and none of it memorable.
That's probably the Games Day scenario being written as an introduction to the combat system.
I'm not going to claim that it is impossible to RP in 4E.
But having one skill for 'Thievery' makes it hard to set up a Rogue caper where one member of the party is the cracksman and another the second storey man.
4E didn't do anything for me that I couldn't get from 3.5 without re-buying the core books.
When and if the on-line exploitation starts, I'm looking forward to being able to get an on-line game when insomnia keeps me awake at 04:00 in the morning. Hurry up and come milk my bank account because that added gaming opportunity is the only thing I see as an advantage in 4E.