Beat Soul Calibur V story mode, and played through Arcade a couple times. I'm still not sure if I like it.
The graphics are slightly improved. The sound is much improved. The gameplay is very similar. The main change to gameplay is the removal of the equipment destruction and the additional of Street Fighter style Super Combos. Blerg. I'm not a fan of those - and they remove the level playing field that's always been the series strength. Now you have to remember crazy complicated moves for each character to stand a chance.
Story mode was OK. Very short, very limited and it was clearly an afterthought since most of the scenes weren't even animated. Basically it's a short series of battles. No special stages, odd conditions or unique rules. Just click on a place, listen to the cutscene, fight a battle, listen to a cutscene, repeat 21 times.
The new characters are a mixed bag. I haven't played Ezio yet, so can't comment on him. The majority of the characters are just offspring of the characters in 0-4, with slightly altered moves - Leixia = Xiangua, Natsu = Taki, Xiba = Kilik, Aeon = Lizardman.
Kilik, Algol, Maxi, Mitsurugi, Astaroth, Edge Master, Cervantes, Nightmare, Hilde, Yoshimitsu, Siegfried, Raphael and Ivy all return.
The new characters ZWEI (who is called a werewolf, but is more a wolf shaman) and Viola are both pretty fun to play.
The biggest change is that Sophitia and Cassandra are both gone. This is a major blow. They're replaced by Sophitia's annoying children, who are also the focus on story mode. Patroklos fights like Setsuka, and Pyrra is mostly a clone of her mother. There's also Elysium, who looks like Sophitia crossed with that robot from Xenosaga.
Obviously they needed to do something different, but the changes add up to make the game feel less like a Soul Calibur game than others in the series.
I think the game clearly is trying to do an online focus and compete with Street Fighter with the more complicated combos, ranking systems, etc. Since that's not an option for me (can't play fighter games with 1200ms latency), I'm a bit disappointed in what was left in the game.
I'll still play it through a few more times to learn the basics of the other characters for parties, but this doesn't have the staying power of say Tekken 6.
C+.
(Oh, and Talim is gone too.
)