I had a small chat with the devloper guy, he simply ask money for it to allow us to *pre-buy* it pretty much like minecraft did, he is a father with a 2.5yr, bills to pay family to feed and he now work from home to have more time with his family and devloping the game.
Good move if you want my point of view, sure its gnome, sure its alpha, sure it has price, sure it look like very much like DF, but 8$ for that game? totally worth it once you know the guy work tirelessly on the game and he is passionate. Worth it or no? everybody has opinion, i bought it and im really happy i did.
Interface, sure its clunky at time specially when comes time to dig staircase down and so on, but you have hotkeys!! press F to lower the wall and see where you are placing stuff. If DF interface isnt a problem for you, you should not have trouble adapting yourself to that game, heck your a dwarf arent you? The game deserve some love and is receiving from all side.
Get on the boat, give the man some money for the game if you like it ( by buying it, heck 8$ come on you are that greedy? Thats nothing if you like a game ). My impression i love it, its like DF while having some stuff different and the more varied *spinoff* game that come out of DF simply shows there is a market for that and maybe, just maybe bigguer studio will realise that and make games like that. BUT i will always be loyal to toady as he is the father of this genre if you want my point of view.