Well, didn't see that coming...
Won't even get in depth with the story, but it's both not all that strong and several key points get backpedaled quickly. Not a trainwreck like Awakening, but with how Nintendo's been hyping it I can't help but be underwhelmed with what's basically a typical FE story on every route. The characters are only moderately better then Awakening's shallow stereotypes. And the third route is clearly the "true" route too, so the whole choice thing feels meaningless.
Speaking of the third route, I don't think Japan even truely has it yet. We know everything about it because everything is already on the cart besides the option to play it. Yep, Nintendo's stooped to on cart DLC. And of course all the other DLC is as comically overpriced as it was in Awakening.
Gameplay wise, they did make an effort to stimy Awakening's problems, but they're not gone either. Pair up is still completely necessary in tough areas and doesn't require much skill or thought, grinding remains necessary, the difficultly jump between the difficulties is still too great, and the maps are mostly vanilla route missions. On the bright side Lunatic is decent, and also fixes stat growths so you're not just praying that RNG doesn't ruin the run. It's underwhelming because previous Fire Emblems did it all much better, and there's other tactical RPGs out there that are more fun then Fire Emblem ever was. The Shin Megami Tensi spinoff Devil Survivor, for one. Two games so far with a third being discussed. More recently there's Stella Glow, I think... Haven't looked at it much but I've been hearing nothing but good things about the game. Advance Wars is my personal favorite.
Probably the biggest problem I have with Fates is how it's attracting a completely different audience. Not expanding it's audience, just targeting completely different people. Problem numero uno is the addition of the difficultly level below casual. Whenever somebody falls in battle they come back next turn when you play that mode. I mean... Casual was okay because you still actually had to think to win, just wasn't as hard. Resurrection mode or whatever requires no thought at all. Maybe if the game was being marketed to children it'd make sense, but as it stands it's not helping their image after what people think of the series after Awakening. And there's this creepy-*** thing where you can look at a character you've S-supported with stripped down to their underwear. No, this isn't a model viewer. It's, for a lack of better words, otaku pandering. It's like they don't care about gameplay anymore.