Despite being burned by Fusion, I don't mind new story elements and........ talking. But man they seem to have it all wrong, characterization wise. Samus has killed Ridley twice, not counting the prime games. She is not going to buckle upon seeing him. In fact, the whole cutscene seems to be reversed. Samus should not be cowering in fear while her temporary commander orders her to use a better weapon. Samus should be using a better weapon and ATTACKING RIDLEY DESPITE ORDERS NOT TO. Now, since she doesn't talk in other games her personality IS up to interpretation, but I think this would line up with Samus's character a lot more.
I'm still waiting for the opinion of other metroid fans to hear if this is a game I'd enjoy. I didn't like the Primes very much despite them being good games (note: I don't like them because I don't like them, not because they're not standard metroid. Too slow for my taste, but still obviously well made), and this seemed more my speed but... eh, a lot of linearity and stuff seems to exist. This may be more illusional than factual though and the game might open up more as you go on. Since I don't go around buying games much anymore, I think I'll give this a few weeks. The gameplay does look good and definitely seems to take one of Primes big strengths -- boss battles. 2d Metroids, while having some impactful bosses, generally had ones that are very boring to fight. Sure, Crocomire and Kraid come off as awesome, but I'm mostly just plowing super missiles down their throats. Still, the..... surrounding gameplay (exploration/map design/possible sequence breaking) seems nebulous right now.