Well, having now played it, that was the disappointment I had been led to believe it would be.
The AI artwork is poor, but made more annoying by, at times, the poor resemblance to the character model used during the dialogue.
the whole plot of the main story was simply lazy. The previous update effectively ended with "cilffhangers" of Danny finding out you'd been shagging Becca and the realization of who Ash is and the mysterious note to find toy in the locker. None of these were touched at all in this update which instead made minor plot moves for some established characters and then a whole new development for a previously minor character.
Bizarrely though, what annoyed me the most, was the blatant laziness of the clearly imported background sprites in the school hall, that were not only artistically wrong but also not sized to the other characters so they all looked like small children.
Normally, I join up and donate when the release drops and then cancel a few months later, not this time. If the next update is equally as poor I will probably just ignore the game thereafter.