I have somewhat mixed feelings.
I had some difficulties getting into the setting and into my character at first. Managed to get into character when the game started, loved the LIC briefing, really felt like Albert belonged there.
During the mission itself, that contact with my own character kind of came and went; though to be honest, that might be more because *I* was feeling out of my depth than any problem Albert had.
The lack of knowledge of/experience with the game system and its world make it harder to decide what to do.
Before, I had most experience with Shadowrun (and Pathfinder/D&D3.5, but that's different enough not to make any accidental connections) and despite all of its flaws, there are things (both rules/mechanics and setting) that just seem much better worked out in Shadowrun and some of the technology really seems strange...
(eg. I can set laser tripwires and motion sensors, I've got wireless communication built in my helmet, there are powerful computers and holographic projectors... but there seems no way to make my earplugs sound an alarm when a a sensor is triggered? Instead the only way to watch sensors it by carrying around several 10-15kg monitors and having a person actively watch it 24/7?)
As for the mission itself:
As I said, I spent most of the time feeling kind of at a loss... Which I guess is bad because I was supposed to be a leader, but instead I was just reacting to things instead of trying to act and make them react to me. Again, this is largely because of unfamiliarity and also the downtime(s) didn't do much to help.
Also, I couldn't stop myself from making Shadowrun comparisons (Sorry) and simply kept thinking 'Man, if this were Shadowrun, I'd probably have this and that do such or so!' but because this wasn't SR and I didn't have or couldn't do that, nothing much happened :(
That might also be because of a lack of 'roles' or 'classes' or however they should be called and knowing what's expected/possible. Don't get me wrong, I prefer classless, but (sorry, comparison again) in SR you knew you had to form a team, knew what skills were expected in total and sort of made it work. For this game I don't think we made a good team... Of course, since most of us were new here and had no idea what to expect, that's probably normal... but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to have one guy flying a gunship, 1 alone in ground combat inside a building and a third who can't do anything in combat at all just keeping her head low and hoping for the best.
Reading back, this all sounds a lot more negative than I mean to be and I know most of it can be blamed on inexperience in this game.
I had fun. The moments I got in my character, I really managed to connect with it, to envision the world he was in, the Steiner politics and nobility issues, the army-family thing, that was great! Horst was fun and I'm really wondering what's going on with these people.
And even though I'd still rather play SR4 (and suspect this mission would've been so much more awesome in that setting! ;) ), I'll certainly continue the game.
Also, I love the character creation system! (Well, once I had it figured out anyway. And now it's been too long so I've probably forgotten how it worked) I could never build a SR character, was always stuck on impossible choices, but this game builds it for you in a very cool way!
As for dropouts, december will be hard for me (retail) and I've still got some other RL stuff to get sorted out. But I don't really expect any more crashes in the nearby future. (Unless games get in my way, but Dragon Age: Inquisition crashes to desktop too much to be fun and The Witcher's still a few months away, so...)