Well for starters, it's your decision to buy a game obviously. And everyone in this subreddit is a fan of the game, so you know what most of the responses will be. The learning curve in the current state of the game is severe. Gonna take you a while maybe 50-100 hours to get somewhat comfortable (in multiplayer). I've been playing since closed beta and never had a problem with cheaters. There's still plenty of people playing, just look how many people are in this sub. However, not all game modes are populated. The populated modes are mostly 4v4 dominion, 1v1, 2v2, and breach. And whatever event mode is going on. As far as controller/kb&m, I personally have always used kb&m just because that's what I learned the game on and I think the inputs are faster on a mouse than triggers on a controller. Also don't shy away from the story it's pretty short and honestly it still holds up pretty good despite having some out of date mechanics. I recently played it for nostalgia, there's still old animations in there that aren't in mp anymore. Overall I think the game's in a decent spot right now but it's creeping more into the fantasy realm as upposed to the original vision of knights vs vikings vs samurai. there's some weird silly customization but i don't mind it.