I'm actually digging the 5 songs that were brought back.  Especially Get up 'n Move.  Those expert steps are just a blast to play!

I'll keep my opinion short.

I like fun charts.  Fun to me is stuff like "CHAOS".  I really enjoyed learning those stop patterns, and I think they all work really well with the chart.  If anything, the chart was memorable, whether most people liked it or not.

Fun is being able to pass Max300 as an extra stage in "1.5x Reverse".  That has it's difficulty as well.

Fun to me are Oni courses, with courses to test your stamina and song knowledge.

The point here, it should be fun to play.  This is a game after all.  I could care less if the chart is a 6 or a 12.  If it's fun, I'm all for it. 

I don't use speed mods or bar on DDR.

I can still AAA and get consistant high scores without as well.
Just the other day I beat PSMO NMNB with an A, I was quite pleased, concidering I'm not really a  high speed guy(yet! :P)

I started out using 1.5X, Solo, but when I found out that you can't use those for Oni courses, I learned how do them without.  I definately enjoy the challenge Oni courses bring to DDR, so I'm all for keeping Oni courses No Mods unless they are special like Trick.

In ITG though, it's a different story, I use speed mods, because they are allowed in the Marathons.  Not in Survival, but thats not a problem, as they usually choose a confortable speed mod for the player to use by default.

Still no bar though, cleared some 11's without. :P

Speed mods are used in IIDX, and now that you can dynamically choose your mod mid song, even in courses, it's not a problem one bit.
I always try to play and learn to play in a way that I can use my skills on all games modes in the game.

No bar is due to the fact I can't use a bar at home. :p 

I own every home version beatmania released(yes, every one), I love the game, I love the challenge it presents, and I do love the recently implemented rival system.  Pushes me and my friends to play harder.

I'm also addicted to "true" extra stages in IIDX.  They are always so cool and I love the custom background images and menus you get when you obtain extra stage.  IIDXRed ES was most menacing, but very cool.

Very excited for IIDX Gold, lots of great songs on there, probably going to pre-order it very soon.

I went all the way through the game on pad and must say that while it's not horrible, it's not great.

Lack of speed mods is not a problem for me, what is a problem, is the lack of edit OR training mode.  Big problem.  And yes, I turned off hand markers, those were dumb and didn't work or respond.  Just like having the eye toy, it just doesn't work Konami, I'm sorry.

Gimmicks were amusing but were turned off after a while.  Also, some of those multiplayer modes don't make much sense...like Sync Mode or something.  One combo breaker by either person and it's game over...ON A HOME SOFT PAD...ummm, WTF, like seriously.  Playing on a soft mat on expert is hard enough already, way to make it harder.

Songs were decent.  It was kind of cool to see songs I found familiar remixed all dancey, and YAY for some Cube::Hard in this mix.  Seriously, DDR needs more Cube::Hard and The Acolyte.  Find their number and call them again for Universe 3/SuperNova 3.  Do it do it do it.   And while ENGLISH versions of DDR tunes were novel...ummm...don't do that again. :(

I can see how this would be the starting mix for most people, so on that note, not bad.  For experts, as always, not much there besides wishing you could make edit steps for songs that do actually sound pretty cool. 

Final Note:: Having a song change steps on expert is actually really neat!  Changes things up quite a bit, something DDR needs. Now I'll go back to dreaming about my ultimate DDR mix(and no, it doesn't contain every song ever.)

I agree with you man, with so many other games having very robust online modes and content, seems almost like an after thought on DDR Mixes. :(

Downloadable charts would be awesome.  Larger rooms, being able to join a room mid game so you don't have to wait around would be  nice.  Weekly downloadable content(Look at Rock Band). More insentive to play online(NOTONLINEONLYSONGSOMG), maybe unlock songs quicker by playing online...?  An online quest mode?  A team of 4 people join up to take on a progressively harder songlist, then their score is compared against other teams?  FORCE DANCE PAD ONLY ONLINE...ummm...heh, well, thats just my preference. :P

They could just screw the whole rating system like they did on DDRMAX and just use Groove Radar, that'd shut everyone up on the "foot ratings."  But of course you'd get the people complaining about other things.

I do believe that everything should be bumped up to 12 or whatever and rescaled.  Nothing wrong with pulling a IIDX here.  When they did it there, I don't think anyone complained.  Or they can do a Drum Mania and do things on a more precise scale.

It's hard for me to justify playing online when I figure most everyone would just use the D-pad and spam stupid hard songs anyway. :( (See::DDRSN2CSUS).  Not so much fun when every other song you play is a 10, and the other person is getting FCSDG's...
Yeah, doing that on your feet on a home pad...right...

I agree with the harder steps/use challenge for every song.
I also would much rather play offical hard steps than some random keyboard smash that some one was like "Lolz, no one will ever beat this!!!!"

Don't get me wrong though, I do love the true dance songs that make it in with a smooth 7 difficulty that is just a blast to play.  Makes me feel like I'm really dancing, even though I'm sure I still look like a complete idiot. :P

I think better player intergration is the key here.  They finally did it in Japan, and just barely did it too, with SN2.  e-amuse allows for player data to be saved, thus allowing stats and achievements(look at the XBOX360, it's like crack... :P) to be tracked.  THEN, unlockable challenge steps for classic songs.  Seriously, this is a freaking awesome touch that I wish there was just so much more of.  I know e-amuse has been around for a while, and in other Bemani it means way more than tracking scores.  You get to unlock songs, charts and other items, totally cool.
SN had e-amuse but just to track scores, it's neat to see that it's a step up in SN2.  I still think they could do more though.

Imagine having more unlockable challenge steps for every song.  Like AA the heavy chart, unlock the challenge chart for that song.  AA every song in a series(any difficulty for all players)(DDR Max, DDR 4th Mix etc.), unlock a special awesome remixed song from that mix.  The remixed songs in DDRMAX2 were awesome. And I thought it was even cooler that they were ONLY accessable in Oni mode.  Made me feel hardcore when I was playing them, when others couldn't even reach those songs.  Then having all of these stats tracked online and accessable to the players gives that intergration I was talking about.  Making the player more involved.

 I do think Marvelous intergration to normal mode will improve the challenge here too.  Now maximum scores are no longer a dime a dozen for every player.  Puts it on the level of IIDX where very, very few people have the max score on very few songs.  

And on a final note, Extra Stages are the bomb diggity. :P  They just feel like that secret boss in a game.  And I mean "true" extra stages, not the select a song extra stages.  I think extra stage should always be locked.  I'm just a jerk though. :P

For the TL:DR crowd, my points are bolded. Thank you for reading. 

Well, they wanted to do a cool promotional tie in with DDREXUS and something.  So when they were coding up the game, they had the programmers lock up a song with a code that they were going to use in a joint promotion really close to after the game launched.  So, as time passed, they tried to find a good oppurtunity to bring it all together, but problem after problem arised.  Companies wern't interested, or they felt that having a code available just wouldn't fit.  So, they waited, and waited...

Then the Burger King promotion happened, and FINALLY there was a chance to use this code they had sitting around for 2+ish years.
Funny how you have a cool idea that just won't work out because of one thing or another.

Heh, I know the story behind the decision on this code.  Kind of funny. ;p