Got my copy in from Noble Knight yesterday so I haven't gotten through the whole thing yet. Some off the cuff remarks:
While I only have the Goodman Games 3e setting book it already looks like 90% of the art is recycled from the 3e books. Not necessarily a problem (I'm okay with budget-shaving if it gets the setting into our hands again), just an observation. Likewise, I get deja vu in certain sections as paragraphs of text were lifted whole cloth from the 3e setting book. Things that jumped out at me were Dave Arneson's introduction, description of the docrae, paragraphs in the dwarf and westryn elf section, etc. I'm assuming this will get worse when I get into the setting description. I think the paper quality is better than the old Goodman book; at least on par with the Advanced Player's Guide (the only other non-WotC GSL book I own), which was very good and durable.
I like the way they handle tieflings. It really ties them to the inherently magical nature of the North. I'm a little disappointed certain PHB2 races weren't addressed (*cough* gnomes *cough*) but that may have something to do with the development cycle of this book and where the GSL was at the time.
I'm a little put off by the Arcane Warrior. I get it's designed to mimic a paladin (but with an arcane spin), but I hate, hate, HATE when MAD is built into a class. With its method of marking you're either forced to ignore the Str/Wis build and always be a Str/Int Arcane Warrior, bump both Int and Wis evenly and therefore never use implement attacks (since your Wis will be way behind Str), or accept that your mark's side-effect will become a joke as you progress through paragon into epic tier. That not withstanding, it does succeed in being distinct enough to exist alongside a Swordmage without either totally stepping on the other's toes. With all the elemental effects I could see this as great synergy with the genasi.
I haven't read enough of the other classes to really give a valid critique of them yet. However, at first glance I wonder how a mystic defends with poor AC and if a wokan is truly best called a "hybrid" role. It seems like the powers either lean controller or leader so you could play it either way or as a poor man's version of both. It's definitely an interesting spin on the idea of multiple builds in a class. As for the mystic - I suspect I'll find the secret to its ability to be a defender once I do more than skim it.
I think it was a bad decision not splitting the feats out into heroic, paragon, and epic sections. I could understand if it was a space/cost decision that prompted it, but with them all together they really should have given us a table with them split out. As it is, you have to flip through the whole section to find feats and pay attention to [PARAGON] and [EPIC] after the feat name to know which tier it belongs to.
I realize I'm coming across a little critical here. Let me say this: what I've read so far is good. It seems like a solid (not so) little book with a far better grasp of the rules system and what makes for a good PC option than the 3e setting book had. Plus, hey, thouls! Rock on! And sand people, so we've officially got our first four-armed PC-friendly race statted up. I was surprised/pleased to see that back in the back of the monster section. It seems reasonably balanced considering. I'm not sure I'd let them in as a PC race since you could effectively build a tempest fighter that still can use a shield, but it does prove the dual wield/defensive weapon rules are so well designed that dual-dual wielding PCs don't gain anything over two-armed PCs.
