First time I'm reading about this. I stopped paying attention to Descent a long time ago and even less so when I sold my 1st edition stuff. Sounds cool, I would definitely like to try this. I would hope they can make the whole game an option to go OL-less. I didn't mind playing as OL, but it's such a weird position to be in. You want to ensure everyone has fun like a GM, but you're competing against everyone else.
It does feel like a different game...Like if Gears of War and Descent 2.0 went into a F-Hut and this is what came out. It is very fun, but it does come out feeling closer to Gears of War than Descent 2.0.