In general I love it. The things I don't like are overshadowed by the good.
I like the new systems in place, though I do think they could use some additional balancing. The game looks so wonderful and I can't wait until optimization comes around. The game itself feels tense again, especially in SP. Even my friends who aren't big into horror games are enjoying it.
1.) The new leveling system. Overall, I think it feels pretty good. Zombie XP could still use a decrease and other XP sources an increase. I know the following has been mentioned elsewhere, but it's a sticking point for me - CRAFTING STATION XP AND TIME. I really hope it's possible to change it to where you still get the XP and the stations keep your crafting time once you exit. There are a couple of things that might (?) need some attention in the perks. For example, Leather Armor has to be made in a workbench, but you can unlock leather armor sooner than the workbench by 5 levels, iirc, that's just strange. I do wonder if all the perks should be attribute based. Some of them feel a bit weird, like cooking.
2.) Food and Drink. Not going to lie, I really thought that I was going to hate this system when it was first talked about/shown and yet, here I am, mostly pleased by it. Food and Drink feel necessary now instead of just a side system that I have to sometimes pay attention to in order to raise my Wellness. That said - and this ties in somewhat with cooking - I do think food might be too prevalent. I've had one game where I had to resort to eating raw foods (and damnit, yes, I got food poisoning TWICE) and generally speaking by the end of the first week, food is a non issue. Perhaps game should be more scarce? However, I would like a way to detect and track game if that is the way to go.
I do think the hunger/stamina needs a bit of tweak perhaps between 80-100% fullness, we lose 1/2 pt of stamina per pt of fullness and then transition to 1pt lose per pt of fullness between 60-80, then maybe higher if you drop below 60 with a bottom floor of say 30-40 stamina? The ability to 'overeat' should be clearly lined out and shown to the player though.
3.) Looting has been made great again. I know there's a lot of mixed feels about slower progression and such. However, I will say that it's nice to find iron/steel tools now whereas before, they were scrap/smelt. The new resource gathering items are fantastic (the piles of sand, blue tarps covering cobblestone, the cement bags etc) feel like a true alternative to investing early in intelligence - especially when combined with the trader. Speaking of our trader friends....
4.) Loving the changes overall from balancing to quests. I would suggest limiting T1 quests to a 500-600m radius from the trader for a couple of reasons - early game stamina can be difficult to manage and the further out you have to go, the more stamina you'll have to use and that begin to, IMO, severely limit the usefulness of the quests. Perhaps an XP or dukes reward bump would also be good. Rewards themselves - in the future, I think it would be nice to be able to ask for a specific reward or have the options be more general, say instead of 'here's your lvl 2 iron hoe', you get a choice of any lvl 2 iron tool. Basic things like forged iron, raw meat, etc should always be in the trader's inventory with the quantities varying (on the first day, the trader has 1 raw meat, on restock he has 10, on the next restock 3, for example.)
5.) Mods - definitely liking them so far. I would like to see the trader perhaps carry more T1 mods at least or perhaps containers where mods are more readily available.
EDIT: 6.) Dungeon POIs - generally like them but their prevalence early game can be a bit much. Also, still getting any where from 4-5 zombies in one room which makes clearing a house with more than one room super time consuming.