This Call of Cthulhu business applies to the 3E of the game as well? Which I have heard is more gamey, and more like D&D 4E (a plus in my group.)
The 3e version of the game reminds me quite a bit of 4E. Gone are the days of starting as a complete weakling and earning your growth. Characters start with some hair on their chests, so to speak. (This one is debatable, good vs. bad)
It is FAR gamier than the earlier versions. There are cards, tokens, stances, and penalties that all have unique markers that get passed around quite a bit. Get a critical wound? Flip over one of your wound cards and that's what happened to you -- typically, this won't last past the end of combat. A lot of the rules for long-term injuries, insanities, and even healing that doesn't happen at a D&D pace are gone now. Players might not be as perfect after a fight as a 4E team would, but they'll still be a lot healthier than they would in an earlier version.
The new character creation system is quite a bit more complex than the older versions, but still won't take long. Essentially, you'll choose some skills and talents in addition to your equipment -- if you only have one starter set, expect this to take a while as everyone reads all the cards and tries to choose the 'best' ones.
Combat is still very dangerous -- a Warhammer trademark -- but if you survive, you'll recover quickly. This is a MAJOR change from earlier editions. Combat takes quite a bit longer (especially at first, there is a decent-sized learning curve). Between stance changes, powers that vary in effect, and all the things one can do to enhance other party members, a player gets to make quite a few decisions on their turn. Not to mention that just learning all the specialized dice and their meanings takes a while! (Side note: If you have more than two or three players, I recommend picking up at least one more set of dice. We spent a LOT of time just hunting down and passing around the blasted things!)
My group has been playing 2E for a long time. We tried it for a couple of months and didn't care for all the tokens, dice, and cards. But the biggest issue, in our opinion, was that it didn't feel like there were lasting consequences. (This is also why we don't play D&D). In Warhammer 2E or 1E, you can lose an eye if you get unlucky in a fight. You can go mad from seeing things man wasn't meant to see. Magic items are usually VERY BAD NEWS and should be buried under a rock and forgotten about. All of these conventions of the earlier Warhammer -- and the fiction related to the universe -- went away or were lessened greatly in 3E.
Whether that is good or bad will, obviously, be up to the group in question. There's nothing wrong with the game ITSELF, it just didn't feel like *Warhammer* to us. Without that history, it might be just the thing for your group.
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On the Warhammer world...
It is a dark and nasty place. If D&D, with common healing, abundant magic items, and heroes in every tavern is a Disney fairytale, Warhammer is the Brothers' Grimm original with blood, death, and mutilation.
HOWEVER, Warhammer 3E supports 'generic' fantasy far better than any previous version. Some of the stuff -- especially for wizards and clerics -- is tied to the setting, but most of it is generic enough for any kind of sword'n'sorcery game. Even most of the wizard and cleric stuff can be re-tooled without TOO much effort from the GameMaster.
The base materials in the starter kit also do a really good job of fleshing out the basics of the world for the players (or GMs) that aren't very familiar with Warhammer. Obviously, they won't be worth much if you make it more generic.
