I guess SPOILERS are okay to post, if not - don't read this...
I've never been bonkers over super hero movies, the only one that I've ever really liked was the Batman movie with Jack Nicholson as the Joker. That one is still by far my favorite, but I did want to go see this... I only get to see about one movie per year now in a theater, and this was the one I chose.
Really liked it too - they did a good job establishing his character before he was "transformed" into Captain America. I kind of wish they had shown broader images of some of the battlefields in the war, and had a bit more mentions of the Germans/Nazis in the latter half of the film (I also noticed they seemed to try and conceal the swastikas on the group of three Nazis that Red Skull meets with... which I can understand not wanting to glorify the symbol, but it also took more of the "realism" out of the film that I was hoping for). But I definitely enjoyed the patriotic theme a lot. It makes this super hero a lot more enjoyable for me and relevant.
I did feel that Bucky's character was a bit boring, and a bit too convenient for him to be isolated in the Hydra base from the other prisoners... but I very much liked Hydra in this as well as Red Skull. They also didn't overdo the special effects in this very much at all... the Hydra weapons were of course a little too high tech, but that was fine and I also liked the Stark connection. At first I was afraid they might overdo that, but they pulled it off very well. I also didn't understand exactly why he had to crash the plane, if he could do that, why not drive around in circles for a while and come up with a better plan? Or try and eject? Guess I missed something there.
Overall, I recommend the movie - pretty damn good and my favorite of the Marvel ones that I've seen. Not sure I'll enjoy the Avengers movie, or will even see it. But I did like this, the era it was set in probably has a lot to do with that.