I guess I'm one that's been "hating" but it's been frustrating with the paint apps. As everyone knows, the eyes are the worst, but I've come across a number, notably Indy's, where the facial paint is brutal too. The scruffy, unshaven look is offset over the mouth? C'mon. The lips are dark but there's a mouth beside or slightly below in terms of paint? Yikes. Were this not a collector geared line, I'd be more accepting but for me, with less retailers and my retailers carrying less plus a higher price point, I'm pretty frustrated and I was up for this line from the beginning. No waffling, I was/am buying. Just shouldn't be this hard though.
And the crappy paint apps end up costing me money in the long run. I'm too scared to order these online now because who knows what the eyes will be like, plus the facial paint apps. Oh woe is me, I know. But I'm paying $11+ per single fig and $18+ per deluxe after taxes. Were these well painted, I could go to HTS.com and save $3 per basic fig and $$8 per deluxe. Wouldn't that be nice? And no, I can't just order them and swap them out when I receive them, because the SKU numbers on US products are not identical to the Canadian product. Grrr. And I've got no coupons or Hasbro Rewards programs to help me out with any of it. On top of that, I'm tired of burdening my US friends with requests to find me crap.
Some of the figures are stellar though. The Monkey Man is great, as is the Indy that comes with the Ark - just wow. And lots of the other stuff is really, really nice too. Much of the deluxe line is fantastic and really well selected and frankly a really good deal (in the US).
But as Scott pointed out, some of the issues from Star Wars carry over here. Did Germans really have heads that much larger than everyone else? I dunno.
Overall I'm really, really happy this line is being made. Honest, I am. The character selection is fine by me as I expected it to carry through to ToD and a second wave of ROTLA. I'm just not sure those waves are going to make it to fruition now. I don't mind digging for a great paint job but at the same time, I shouldn't be digging just to find something acceptable. It should be a choice between acceptable (Star Wars standard) and exceptional. Not acceptable and utter crap as has been the case for the Indy figures in the basic line (haven't seen KOTCS locally yet).