I was there from 12:30 PM to 7:30 PM yesterday. I signed up using my initials (“JAS”). Aside from a single attempt at Rufus (the first and only for the day aside from Justin Wong, at least up until I left), I played nothing but blue/yellow Bison. I had about 25 wins with him overall (two 6-0 runs, a 5-1 run, and the rest short runs, including a loss to JWong). Not bad for my first try at SFIV. I lost to Ryu four times (three different players), one Gief, one Blanka, and JWong’s Rufus.
Sadly, it’ll probably be my last try at SFIV until the console version, since I’m heading back to Trinidad on Wednesday, and there’s no way in hell anywhere in my country is going to get SFIV. 
Anyway, random thoughts:
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As I had long suspected, throws in general don’t do enough damage. Throw range, on the other hand, isn’t bad at all. Tick throws are good in this game, though I could do without the 7% damage.
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At the moment, I’d say Gief is just right: If he gets in close and grabs you, he wins. If he doesn’t, he loses. That pretty much summed up Gief’s performance yesterday. One guy with him was good and got a 6-0 run (I lost to him), but the others who tried him didn’t do so good.
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Rufus is very annoying. Very hard to get off you if he knocks you down and dive kicks the crap out of you. Also, while I have no problem with his j.HK -> Ultra, I find that being able to tack on Ultra after his BnB in the corner (dive kick, c.LK/s.HP, HP Galaxy Tornado) is a bit much.
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As far as I can tell, El Fuerte is garbage. There was one guy who was trying his best, but it seemed like he was working three times as hard as his opponent to win, and that still wasn’t enough. I think it’s mainly the fact that, when he gets an opening, his biggest combo is, what, jumping HP, c.MP? Throw? He just can’t string together enough damage to take advantage of things, and his running moves are all weak.
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Viper may be as bad as Fuerte, I’m not sure. She was only played a couple times and pretty much got destroyed by whoever her opponent was. This included at least one good Gief, so I don’t think this was a good representation of what she can (or can’t) do.
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Abel looks solid. But GODDAMN his rekka chain damage got RAPED. Why did they do this? Why bother with a rekka chain that does maybe 11% damage total (9% for the initial punch, and 1% for the two follow ups - I’m NOT kidding!).
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Blanka seems really good. Don’t ever jump at Blanka when he has full super or a stock of Ultra.
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Chun-li seemed solid. Saw a couple nifty combos from JWong with her:
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Jumping Hp,HP target combo (knocks opponent down), juggle with Falcon Kick (in air, d+MK) x 3.
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c.lk, c.lk, EX100 Kicks, juggle with EX 100 kicks or EX Spinning Bird Kick. JWo also tried to tack on super/ultra afterwards, but it didn’t connect for more than a few hits. Might be corner only.
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As I heard, there were a billion Kens, Ryus and Sagats. All seem pretty good. The only thing of note I saw was one guy doing a somewhat ghetto (but effective) combo with Ryu: Late anti-air jab DP that trades (which happens more often that it should), juggle with Ultra. Think of it as the less meter dependent version of DP->Focus Dash Cancel ->Ultra.
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Didn’t see much of Dhalsim, Honda or Balrog. Guile and Vega got picked a couple times but the players weren’t that good, so they weren’t represented well.
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As I noted, I played nothing but Bison and did pretty well with him using mostly straight SF2 tactics. Lots of Scissors Kick pressure (I didn’t get punished for a blocked LK/MK scissors kick after a c.LP, c.LP, c.MK string even once), tons of throws, and endless cross ups (j.MK is flawless cross up).
EX Scissors will go through projectiles, so that’s great. Psycho Crusher seems terrible, slow and very bad recovery. I barely used it, and I forgot to use the EX version. EX Stomp = WTF. He seems to have invincibility on start up or something, cause I was using that thing as a wake up and it didn’t get stopped once, and it beat damn near everything. ONCE it traded with Gief’s Lariet, but that’s it. It’s a knock down too, which is also good. The regular stomp is a bit nerfed though: not only does it not have the range that it used to (if opponent is at full screen and you try to stomp, you’ll land right in front of them; this also happens with his Devil Reverse from more than 3/4ths screen away - it’s as if Bison’s aerial moves are designed for a smaller playing field), but now Bison doesn’t turn around automatically if you fly behind them afterwards, so no more cross up Somersault Skulldiver, which makes me a sad panda. Devil Reverse is good, though you’ll actually have to be within 3/4ths of the screen away to actually be able to hit your opponent with the attack. I only used EX Devil Reverse once (by accident), so I know nothing about it aside from the fact that it hits twice.
Bison has a couple new attacks, I was surprised. His s.LP is rubbish: A slow sideways chop that looks like CvS1/2 Rugal’s s.LP and is just as slow. Close s.MK is now an ankle kick. And his vertical j.MP is some bizarre body press punch looking attack that has negative range. I hate it. He has Alpha Bison’s vertical j.HK and s.HK, which is okay I guess.
Finally, Bison has a new move I was unable to identify. I saw one of the other Bison players (only saw two other people pick Bison on Monday, and only one of them was any good) do some sort of aerial dive punch. How is this done? I don’t think it’s in his move list.
All in all, the game seems to be pretty good. Not flawless, but just what it needed to be:A BRAND NEW Street Fighter that plays good and looks fucking gorgeous. Let Capcom (continue to) hype this sucker up to hell for the console version, add those 8 additional characters that birdies have whispered to me will be there, and this game will make serious bank.
Awesome game im commin back Tuesday hopefully. BTW i was ryu
So far my hardest match up is playing a good sagat because he can control space better than ever and i could never seem to jump in fast enough without getting tiger uppercut to the face. tiger knee cross-up when im down also messes up my charge at that last sec so be careful.I started learning how to play him and got a perfect on a decent sagat so hopefully I can keep it up. The key is to not jump in often as he will almost always tiger knee, hk, or tiger uppercut bison. You have to be patient and constantly jump straight up over tiger shots spam then try to get in a jump in when the sagat gets impatient or do c.HK slide to catch them by surprise.