Well, Nelson and Luong are probably going to get at least some playtime from most players, including me. As a Jhun player, I hope Luong is a good stance character. And while I like Vanessa and Heavy D! like seemingly everybody else, I very much welcome Nelson in the line of SNK boxers. Love what I see so far, and one of the best designs I've seen for a FG boxer (tire tracks on his gloves). One day will get a good pugilisim team (Vanessa/Heavy D!/Nelson/Michael Max/Rick Stroud/Franco Bash/Axel Hawk/Rob Python - any combination of this will due for me).
Athena's looking ok to me. I definitely got the Frieza vibe from her big fireball too. If we get DLC costumes for the characters, I wonder how many Athena will have.