I need to squirrel myself away for a weekend and get stuck in. I know I'll love it because it's the kind of game I enjoy - the entry point feels a bit higher than I'd expected though!
Out of curiosity, what do you mean by "dire pretenses"? I remember the steam release, but wasn't heavily into DF before that, so maybe I wasn't aware of things going on in the community? Or is that more about the state of the game on initial release?