At the moment I am NOT enjoying Sandstorm more than the original. To me that's impossible and not even a fair comparison because Sandstorm is currently severely lacking in content and missing essential features such as;
- a working server browser
- a vote kick system (or combination of other systems like Punish/Forgive to deal with teamkillers etc.)
- a (visual) map vote system at the end of a game (after a Victory or Defeat)
- show name of player who is talking on the mic
- a mute player function
- more maps that are more diverse (only 4 maps at the moment: no evening, night, rain, snow or bushy map like Peak)
- more game modes (only 1 in coop: after 130+ hrs of Checkpoint it has become boring and flawed so now I'm already playing less and less)
Also Sandstorm needs improvements in gameplay, bot AI, cosmetics, point system, ambient audio, more polish & optimization and bugfixes. Having said that, the game certainly shows promise and looking at NWI's trackrecord I remain hopeful and think in the end Sandstorm will be a great game that they'll support and improve for a long time.