Quoted from RobT:Thanks for the explanation.
There's really nothing new in terms of how some pins are "greeted" when first released. You only have to go as far back as Stern's last release to see this, as Star Trek was given a less than stellar initial feedback as well, but the current ratings are very high even based on the initial code.
I don't know. With Star Trek, it seemed like most people were saying, "Well, it doesn't look great, but I'll have to try it." Iron Man was the game that really stuck out at me because the majority of people said it was garbage and they never wanted to play one, and anyone who did was crazy. I've heard some of the same stuff about, "Why would you get Mustang when Star Trek and Metallica are out?!" that seems to have been going on when IM was just released.
I'm guessing that this will really be a player of a machine, and that it will gain fans over time. I can somehow always look past theme and just at speed for my initial impressions, and it seems to have that in spades. Seems that the fast games (Tron, Iron Man, Metallica) always gain the most love, if not right away, eventually.