So... no overland travel or alchemy?

The lack of overland travel kind of makes me sad. I enjoyed the "mystery" of having large swaths of land that weren't so much explored as left to the imagination of what could be there.

"60mi to Fort Bargha" would include little farms and patrols, with bits of forest.
Now it just does not feel as large since I can potentially map every inch.

Yup. That's just one of the reasons why IMO Avernum sucks from 4 onwards.

Aw man! I was hoping that by Avernum 5 they would do a Geneforge thing and make it hotspot type locations.

Edit: No secret doors either? =/
Double Edit: Or reputation?

Avadon is here, Huzaah!!

Avernum 5 was great!
No "overworld" travel but hidden doors (buttons) and height differences is back.
It's different in that it's not played out in the normal cave system of avernum but in a somewhat unexplored cave system to the north, and you are soldiers from the surface world, not avernites.

Yeah Avernum 4 just flat out uses a not so good ap system. Ranged weapons are king in 4 and melee is kind of crap because it takes 2 rounds to charge up to enemies.

I found that Avernum Escape from the Pit was my favorite for a few reasons. 1-Although it uses a skill tree system, you are more or less forced to get the same skills in the previous system even moreso than this one. In this one, you get ultimate freedom to create character with even more freedom as you get more choices all throughout the game, instead of just early on. 2-Because of the trait system, you have even more freedom to mold your character with things such as traits for backstab, health, dual wielding. The possibilities are almost endless.

You can focus more on strength than endurance and you have a brute that deals heavy blows in melee. Or focus on strength and dexterity and you have a finesse fighter evading blows, strength with more focus on endurance and you have a barbarian. You can use all these builds while still placing points into traits like backstab offering more freedom.

These setups and builds were much harder to get right and offered less freedom in previous version. Mostly everyone on the forums would agree that the 2nd remake will rock the house :)

Is it better than original Avernum/Exile dialogue/storywise (I know they're technically the same but they are kind of rewritten a bit?)?

I miss so much stuff that they took out of 4.
I'm exploring under Patrick's Tower at the moment and am nostalgic for the larger environments.

I would say so. It removed alot of annoying things that were in original, the falling off ledges. The graphics were awesome and I would say the tactical system of game is much improved. You get battle disciplines like in Avernum 5 and 6 making melee/ranged weapons better.

There's a new intro to the game with sinister characters, and most importantly, for the geneforge fans, there's a whole new faction that you can do quests for. You can even do his quests, then finish one of the endings and in the process remove him if you wish. Its a lot of fun.