I've been playing this for several days now, it's still alpha but quite playable. It has a slight "Cataclysm : dark days ahead" feel to it. Makes me wonder how good the game would be if you threw in all the Cataclysm stuff. There definitely is a learning curve, but once you understand the mechanics you'll be safe 99% of the time.
Right now, my new game routine is :
Collect stones, sticks, some grass, make a stone axe, get some wood (if near a forest), scavenge some iron and a pipe, find a quiet hill in the desert, make a forge and a chest, lay low during the night while crafting, turn scavenged iron into ingots (need to get clay first but you can dig with the stone axe).
Then make a pickaxe, go to the wasteland, mine the iron laying around, go back to base, make ton of ingots, make all the tools and a sledgehammer to fight with.
Then explore places to get guns/food/loot, kills zombies for their loot, get a water source with a bucket, make jars with desert sand, get wood for fuel. At this point you probably have a pistol, use it to hunt rabbits, make leather from the hides, make iron armor... It's pretty easy.
Once you have gathered enough guns you make molds of the parts and now you can make new ones as long as you have iron. Iron itself is pretty abundant once you find a vein, if you don't you can always melt the random crap you find and/or get some in the wasteland. Finding an iron vein will also randomly provide materials for gunpowder. With a shotgun, hunting stags is easy, and until then you can always get some food from zombie drops and exploring houses.
For now the endgame seems to revolve around getting all the gun parts, since you only get 1 part per gun, and exploring the whole map (which goes hand in hand). After that it's just building and defending your base.
In solo play I have often encountered hordes but not yet in multiplayer - maybe because of server settings. I'm having fun for now, but I can imagine it getting dull quickly once I have accomplished all my goals. Well they seem to release updates once a week so at least things are moving forward. And honestly ? If there ever is a mod with C:DDA content it will be the best thing ever.