The lack of start menu really made it feel claustrophobic to me.
You can get to almost all the same menues that you can in 7, but it's a different path to get there.
And most of it is full screen, which I wasn't a fan.

If they gave me a standard start menu, and made all the app stuff go window mode rather than full screen, i'd be fine with it.

Well, that and the whole slowing my computer down thing. But that probably will be addressed for the final version.