I played the original game I believe up until around Issue 7 or 8, so there's a lot of new stuff in this version that I never got to experience. Back then, I had a group of friends and family who also played this, and I had a far easier time playing whatever I wanted, because I could always generally get a team and didn't have to rely on the generosity of strangers.
In this version, I started as a thugs/poison mastermind, and felt like this class was extremely weak. Struggled for about 20ish levels with little to no resources for gear. Getting on a decent team was rare, and solo leveling a pleb mastermind was very slow.
HOWEVER
Then I made a spines/fire brute, and started fire farming to power level myself and get drops and money and found this game to be far more enjoyable than the struggles of a fresh starting account with low-mid level mastermind with little to no resources. Now I at least got enough to keep my enhancements up to date and then some. And I'm able to make steady and consistent progress without requiring myself to be carried by the community's generosity.
This is my personal opinion, but based on my experience, I wouldn't recommend a returning player on a fresh account try to play anything other than an AE farming build with their first character, because that's a really steep road, and you'd be relying on getting on solid teams in order to level up, which isn't guaranteed, but you'd probably have better luck than I did if you actually have IRL friends or family who play this.