I got this game the other day on the Steam sale, and just got around to trying it today. While I am pretty bad at traditional fighters, and this one is no exception, there's one thing I wanted to bring up in here.
I tried using a Steam Controller and was pleasantly surprised. The main beef I had with all the other controllers available to me (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii U Pro controller) was that they don't have any kind of octogate on the analog stick, and only the Wii U Pro Controller has an ideal D-pad, however it's kind of a pain to set up to get to work.
I tried the most popular binding for the Steam controller and was actually pleasantly surprised. You can use the D-pad or the analog stick on it, but I prefer the D-pad.
For those that don't know, the Steam controller's D-pad doesn't work like a traditional D-pad. There's the + shaped grooves in the pad, and it can be configured like a mouse touchpad, D-pad, and a few other functions. With the D-pad functionality, the way it's read is based on where your thumb is, NOT where you press it. This means it doesn't "click" if you were doing a "hadouken" motion on it. It just has a click when you press down on it, but moving your thumb around it, the feedback you get is from the + shaped grooves and the haptic feedback.
The default for the config I used had the d-pad not require a click, which seemed weird to me, then I gave it a try and realized how much I liked it. It actually feels very good, and much better than any analog stick for a traditional fighting game. It's no arcade stick, but it still feels pretty good.
This is obviously just me, but my problem with the analog stick on this controller, and others is that often I screw up quick inputs and accidentally input another direction. For instance there was something in the tutorial (I forget what), that required a half circle backward and then pressing forward. I kept trying and trying with the analog stick and could not get it down consistently becuase I accidentally hit what was read as an "up" input when trying to push forward after the half circle. Doing this on the left touchpad/D-pad was really easy and I could do it every single time.
This actually sounds really interesting. I'd be curious to try this out and see how some of the more elaborate motions feel on it, like instant airdashes, tiger-knee Axl Bombers and dash-momentum Beak Drivers/Tandem Tops.