Really love this game. It will remain to be seen how heat played out but right now during the honey moon phase the game is really fun. The game continues to do what Tekken does best: offer a fighting game package in which there is enough depth that you can pour 1000's of hours into the game and still have things to explore, but is also accessible enough that new players can hop in, find a character that seems cool and mash away. Heat is definitely a powerful mechanic, but I was surprised to find that there is quite a bit of strategy and decision making surrounding how to use it effectively. The meta does fall into how well you can use heat so it is absolutely the defining factor in matches but how to use heat has some depth to it. I think that in subsequent patches, the strength of some heat moves will be tuned down, as T7 slowly lowered the power of certain characters over time. But I think we're in a period now where the game feels explosive and fun, which honestly is great for the first season of a game. Refinement can be the flavor of the game over a long lifespan, but the first few months-year I'm okay with being a slugfest personally.

To me the biggest drawbacks are QOL and optimization. Currently there is no benchmark to play online, so if another player's PC cannot properly run the game, the game will stutter. They really need to add a benchmark / recommended for online setting type of system to 1) reduce stuttering 2) not alienate the players on lower power PC's but instead guide them to the correct settings to reduce stuttering. There are many upscaling options but how they work are a blackbox.

The other issue is the complete lack of infinite matches and poorly optimized user experience. FT2 in ranked is fine, but having player matches and lounge matches also be FT2 makes no sense. In a game as difficult as Tekken, it can be really difficult to learn match ups if new players are only encountering 1 character on a 32 roster every once in a while and then for only a 2, maybe 3 games at best. Also searching for lobbies needs to be implemented. I am part of a discord community and when we are trying to play with players in other platforms and are unable to invite via stream, it becomes a game of refreshing the available lobbies over and over until our lobby comes up.

Overall, I love Tekken and I think this is a great game for newcomers and veterans a lot. If you go into this game with the right mindset, it's just the best.

EDIT

After 887 hours I think it's fair to say that I have stuck with this game since my initial review. As a matter of fact, I think subsequent patches did a great job course correcting the game, with patch 1.5 being a particular high point for me and a lot of people in the community. Patch 2.0 is without a doubt one of if not the single worst update to a fighting game I have ever seen. The developers have shown that they are completely out of touch with their own game, as the changes they've made are not aligned with any player's vision, veteran or newcomer. I am sure that they will fix the game but the question of how long that will take and what direction they will take it next are not likely to be answered soon.