This review will focus on a game purchaser's impressions after "cracking the plastic" and the physical components of the game.

Actions speak louder than words: I've played the game all of exactly once, and I snagged the last copy in the store after because of that impression. Despite all the niggles I mention, I'm very happy with the purchase.

Pre-First Impressions:
Rulebook is available online at the Rio Grande Games website
Looked straightforward and clear.
Good buzz from those who had played previously.
Box has a nice heft - not ultra-heavy like Agricola, but far from empty.
Price is reasonable - it's not an amazing deal (Days of Wonder games probably have better price/weight ratio and are also in about the same price range, and Prophecy is probably the current leader there being both cheaper and stuffed with heavy bits) but it's post USD crash, it's (just) under the magic $50 mark at my FLGS. Cheaper than Caylus, Cuba, about on par with Amyitis, Notre Dame, and definitely more expensive than Mykerinos.
Not initially a fan of the theme, but it grew on me when I realised I didn't have any chinese-themed games in my library.
All the bits look a bit...small

My plan/hope: This game would fill the "quick but gamer's game" pseudo-hole in my library, rather than Notre Dame which didn't grab me. Plus, an appropriate buy around Chinese New Year. Worried that it wouldn't be good value for money, due to the small playing pieces

The Main Event: Arrived at the local game store. My friend was immediately snatched into a newly opened Through the Ages game - I was happy to help punch out and finally play ItYotD. After a tense game, I was firmly convinced that this was a game I'd definitely want to play again. Another gamer waffled and decided against buying the last copy in store, so I was happy to help out in his stead. I brought my new toy home, and then punched/bagged everything before going to sleep

First, the rules:
Full colour
Lots of pictures and diagrams
Helpful summary notes on the right hand side
A rather important note is lost on p.4, since it is typeset in the same italics as the examples (this will be important later).

Having read the rules beforehand, and also having the resident "pro explainer" explain the game, my first play was pretty smooth.

The Box:
Size is slightly smaller in all dimensions than my copy of Taj Majal. Depth is about the same as my copy of Race for the Galaxy, but wider and taller.
Box seems fairly solid and opened easily

The Wood:
The game comes with tall wooden cylinders, to mark a player's score, and standard flat wooden discs, to mark a player's cumulative "person value".
Scoring cylinders are clearly different from the flat circular "people track" markers
It might have been more intuitive to have a meeple for the person track

The Board:
"German-cut" board that folds into quarters. Size is about the same as the Taj Majal board, and has the Alea logo tiled on the back.
Scoring track goes around the outer edge, with the 100 looping onto the 0 space. Scoring cylinders fit easily along the track, with room for a couple to share a space.
The board is functionally very effective - places for all the "in play" gaming pieces (scoring, people track, persons to hire, action tiles, events)
Feels solid, and lies nearly flat...but not completely. Might rectify itself (get broken in?) with use
Graphically, the board is basically a glorified tablecloth - some geometric patterns I've seen on chinese carpets with dragons on top. All the spaces are appropriately sized, but not much more other than that.
The colour scheme is basically red on red.
No real attempt to distinguish all the various spaces on the board (lost opportunity to use evocative artwork, like maybe some kind of calendar for the event track, or symbols to distinguish the Score vs Person track). The first two events (peace) are printed on the event track, so it is possible to infer that the spaces at the top must be for the people (but the building levels, rice and fireworks form supplies off-board)

The Cardboard: (or the "maybe I was spoiled by Prophecy" section)
Cardboard tokens are used to designate each of the people that can be hired, the rice, fireworks, privileges and yuan (money) you have, the actions that can be taken, the events in the year and the buildings you own.
Tokens come on five cardboard flats - tons of cardboard pieces!
Action cards are made out of cardboard (rather than being straight cards) - a page out of the Puerto Rico/San Juan book. These are nice and large, just a bit smaller than the cards. Actually, if they were a bit bigger (i.e. size of the cards), they would be a perfect fit for the card well in the insert.
Cardboard tokens are used as money - circular "yuan" coin pieces with a square hole punched in the middle in easily distinguished gold and silver colour, for 3 and 1 yuan denominations. It might have been nice to have the 3 yuan pieces slightly larger.
Small octagonal tokens denote each unit rice or fireworks. Rice tokens are green, and have a picture of a bag of rice, whereas fireworks show a single firework on a purple background. Easily distinguished by colour and picture, although it might have been nice to have these different shapes as well (hexagons? squares?)
Lots of punching. The cutting was not up to the "fall out of the sprues at the lightest touch" level that I've seen in other games - the yuan pieces came out easily, whereas the privileges took some coaxing, but none of my pieces ended up ripped.
Glossy finish, with "sharp"/clean-cut edges/corners - I prefer linen-texture and the more rounded feel. Tokens feel solid - cardboard appears to be good quality - but I'd prefer it to be a touch thicker just for improved ease of picking up.
Tokens are all of serviceable size, but I'd prefer them a touch larger - especially the people you can hire and the event tokens, which are 1.25in (~3cm) square. The event tiles could have been a different size (and/or shape) than the people tokens, and would have benefited from having little reminders as to what happened (e.g. 4 yuan symbols on tribute, 3 medicine bowls on contagion, etc.)
I had my reservations about the palace pieces, but they do stack very nicely.
Far too few of the privilege tokens (two big, five small), especially since they are supposed to be unlimited (this is the important note on p.4 of the rulebook).

Plastic:
Generic looking insert has a spot for the board and a well for the cards
Would have preferred better wells to store the tokens
Baggies were a good idea, but the plastic seals on mine were too solid - most of them tore when I tried to open them.
Plastic stands for the dragon tokens made them easy to retrieve (but giant dragon meeples would have been of course much cooler). The dragon pieces fit snugly in them - have to use a bit of strength to get it done, but nothing like the "jaws of life" level of power needed for the Arkham Horror character stands.
Large amount of space between the top of the insert and the box lid once everything is punched. Placing the cardboard sprues underneath the insert props it back up to the right height

Cards:
smaller "german-sized" cards - I prefer the larger playing card size.
finish is perfectly serviceable (not sticky), but not textured
player aids are printed on one of these cards, and are between 2x and 3x too small. It's not technically illegible (it's physically possible to bring it up to your nose and squint), but this size is totally unacceptable.

Artwork and Theme:
Language independent
Each of the different types of persons have a nice full-colour illustration, but the experienced vs. non-experienced versions of the same person are only differentiated by their abilities. It would have been definitely nifty to have "heroes" as the experienced version (if not a lot more work and would really need to be bigger pieces and artwork to pay off)
The pictures on the persons match the action cards, but it would have been nice to get the same info on your hiring cards (with the person value/icons) - a missed opportunity
A bit of confusion between the privileges (parchment) and the books. It would have been better to choose something more different for the privileges - maybe monuments/statues (but too close to builder?) or artwork/murals?
Person value is not a very thematic concept - the way it fits in with the military characters makes it maybe military prowess, or the size of your army?
The art on all the actions are nice and appropriate, but it would have been better to have some kind of symbology summarising the events (especially given the state of the reference card)

The game (First Impressions only here):
Lots of optimization to think through, with delicious uncertainty from what other players will do
Lots of jockeying for the turn order à la Power Grid
Lots of tough decisions - better to lose people and score points or pay big to save them ... but what about the next event?
Some definite confusion between the "do your action" phase and the "hire a person" phase - every now and then someone would try to hire a person instead of taking the resource or vice versa.


So overall, what is my impression so far? The components are "good", but niggles abound everywhere which firmly keep it from being "excellent". Most of these are simple style preferences, but it does spill over into usability: most of the pieces and the cards would have benefited from being larger, with the player aid being basically unusable due to its microscopic size, and more of the "unlimited" privilege pieces would have been appreciated. Quality appears to be in line with other Alea offerings that I've seen (Puerto Rico, Notre Dame), although definitely cannot compete with a Days of Wonder release.

The game itself seems to be top-notch...but more on that after a couple more plays.