Huge fan of the game, undoubtedly a work of art in my view and very excited to see the update released and the progress Hopes has made. Have to say though I'm not wild about the new missions.
The concept is good and I'm not opposed to the idea of needing to do more to succeed than was required in the previous version. But as others have said, the grind is real and the success/failure balance is off in the early game. It's just a little too unforgiving to be fun, in my view. Succeeding at an early contract is tough because you don't have money to buy the equipment you need or the necessary xp (failing on charisma, intelligence, stealth etc). I imagine that your luck does improve as you level up, as it did with the previous version, but because the game-time spent doing a contract is much greater, the frustration at failing one is magnified. The fact that failure also means losing mission points that then have to be replaced (costing money) just makes the experience a bit too demanding. I'd be tempted to bypass them entirely after my first sample, except for the fact that it seems there is some visual content in there that would be missed. (I saw some of it and then...failed the contract, so missed the rest).
Just my thoughts but some possible adjustments might be to: only make contracts available after a certain experience level has been reached, or make the success threshold lower, (both of these are really saying the same thing - make them easier), or introduce a more reliable way of earning money, so the cost of contract failure isn't so high.
However it remains a fantastic game, I love the improved visuals and new scenes I've seen so far, and wish nothing but good things for the dev.