I'm loving it so far, got it last week. Right now I just finished the first desert battle. It was the first battle ppl started to actually get taken down and I had to call in reinforcements to finish.
I have been extra careful tho to try and rescue everyone. Think I heard someone on here say if someone dies it's permanent, and I don't want to lose any characters.
Other than that, story and gameplay are fantastic. This is probably my third fave exclusive on the PS3 so far this gen, it really is a great game (atleast so far). Going off of some of the reactions in another thread here tho I think I'll opt to skip the DLC.