Particle Man has a pretty good summary.
1) Errata, clarifications, and changes based upon player feedback. They changed incapacitation, the knock-out blow table, and a lot of other small things that their players said were too clunky. Also they changed melee damage into another weapon damage roll (one die strength plus one die weapon), rather than a modified strength roll. This makes unarmed combat a lot less powerful.
Oh, and the Explorer Edition is missing all those sweet vehicle write-ups (Apache gunship, Hover Tank, etc.).
2) It's a gritty and dangerous system that encourages the use of real-world thought, tactics, and problem solving. A lot of the problems encountered are better solved with words or a clever ploy than with violence (though violence is always an option). If you or your players aren't up for that then my advice is to move on.
The rules assume miniatures (of some sort) on a battle map. You can run it without a map but there are a
lot of features that really suffer for the lack.
Game play is actually pretty smooth. The rules are fairly simple and consistent with only a few ridiculous combinations (three background edges plus a social edge and a hindrance can give a Charisma of +10, which guarantees just about any Persuasion/Streetwise check ever). However, these few combinations are remarkable for their rarity rather than their frequency.
For skillful characters, Agility and Smarts are the keys, with Spirit being useful. For combat characters, Agility is key with Spirit and Vigor being highly useful; Strength is of limited utility for non-melee characters, while being useful (but not amazing) for melee combat characters.
To expand on 3) Savage Worlds is bad at making ....
Characters that aren't normal people. The
RAW character generation builds perfectly average people, made exceptional by a "heroic spark" (Wild Card) and their own character flaws (Hindrances). For some groups and campaigns this is ideal. For other groups or campaigns this is a serious weakness of the system. What it does do, for all groups, is make it very difficult to play certain archetypes or characters progressing towards certain archetypes.
It's a fairly simple adjustment (more/fewer ability points / skill points; card-draw abilities and fixed skill points; etc.) to better fit the tastes of your group.
P.S. Encourage players to take the Hindrances that fit their characters. If they're going to RP it anyway, they might as well get a Benny for doing so. And you only get RP Bennies for your Hindrances or plot advancement, not for being a stupid PC that just got the party into a world of trouble (unless the brand of stupid was one of your character's Hindrances).
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