Its serviceable not fantastic but it workable with some tweaking... We haven't played with the matrix enough for me to give a really solid opinion (though I do like the general direction of it), but the magic rules seams to appease the grognards somewhat. I'm not going to say the magic rules are great, or that you don't need to tweak them some more but it is a step in the right direction. Mentor Spirits for example are not much like the old version so if someone loves their old rat shaman you may have to either find a mentor that fits and relabel it rat or just grab the old rat and tweak if needed. I still miss my pools but I got to admit 4eA combat is faster. Right now I'm enjoying 4eA 2050 more than 1e or 3e but... I'm a 2e guy at heart.