I'm in the process of reading through CRB6, and it's pretty meh. Here's a few things I have so far:
- Status effects look really fun on paper, when they stack up on other people (e.g. Dazed and Confused, Wet and Zapped).
- They stripped down a lot of options that were already well developed (e.g. races, qualities, archetypes) and didn't need to be stripped down.
- The combat system is "streamlined", but not any faster. You're just trading initiative passes for more combat rounds, which amounts to no net savings on time.
- Attack Rating and Defense Rating are abstracted qualities that don't feel like they contribute to the game (gaining one edge in a system where augs and qualities already consistently get you more for the same actions).
- Edge reaching across the table. This is hot garbage. My luck should have no ability to actively mess with my opponent's dice pools.
- Gear availability. At chargen, you are limited to availability 7(I). This is almost everything in the gear section. A Decker can start with a rating 6 CyberJack and the second-best Cyberdeck in the game. A Street Sam can have Wired Reflexes 3 (maybe 4) out of chargen. This really makes playing for advancement less relevant. One the plus side, it makes one-shot runs more fun.
- Riggers. Instead of listening to players about the insane costs of being a rigger, they made control rigs MORE expensive and LESS useful. So hopefully other players will buy the Rigger their vehicles, because they won't be able to afford them.
I'll have more as I read more, but unless there is a lot of good stuff I missed, I'll probably be selling off the CRB6 I got from GenCon.