I actually really enjoyed the new Paranoia. More than anything, it made me realize how dated the science fiction vision of the original had been, being written in a world that hadn't yet discovered the beauty of <blink> tags and Flappy Bird.
As for the communist/terrorist swap: the commies are still there, they're just one flavor of terrorist. The "inherent threat" of communism isn't as noticeable as the tongue in cheek bad guy as the more broadly understood concept of terrorism is/was in the early aughts when Paranoia was reborn. You really need to have grown up in the 70s and 80s to appreciate that "communism was a red herring", and that ain't the target audience.
I think that the thing that I liked the most about Paranoia's card based system (that I'm know other systems have had, but I didn't really notice it till I played Paranoia) was that the cards stopped you from having to constantly go to the book to see how powers and abilities worked and interacted. Pretty much everything you need is written there on the card.
I was also a fan of how the game allows you to adjust how much of the card system bleeds into the game. We only used the full system, so I don't actually know how well the half measures played out, but I appreciate the effort.
As for not wanting to get into a game where you need to buy more of something to keep playing. You only need to buy new cards as much as you need to buy new books. New shiny toys are a pitfall of pretty much every aspect of our hobby.
The appeal of card based systems are varied, but at least mechanically, you have to factor in that you are affected by different kinds of randomization when playing poker with a deck of cards vs playing it with dice. In a game built around and on top of bluffing, and lying, and paranoia, and not knowing what the other guy has up their sleeve, I think that a card based system is a smart choice.