I got it in Christmas hoping to catch up before DDD as well. I think it's pretty great. I went a month or two without playing it because I got bored of grinding (one thing about the game is that if you're a perfectionist like me, it requires a TON of grinding, plus SPP and MPP are irritating as hell to try and gather), but I've picked it up again. Joshua is easily my favorite character so far, even though I'm totally shipping Neku, Beat and Rhyme as my OT3. How far into the game are you, or have you already beaten it? (I'm one of those gamers that takes months to beat a single game because I get so involved in doing everything humanly possible...and I only really play massive-ish, intensive games like KH, so.)
Yeah. Fair warning, this is where a lot of fans and ex-fans of the series will inevitably start complaining that the series started going down hill, because they left Agrestic (or Majestic, lawl) and lost their suburban comedy schtick with it. Personally, S4 and 5 are the high points of the series for me; perfectly executed black comedy, all over the place. Right now I'm collecting all the DVDS (already have 1-3 and 5) so I can do a rewatch in anticipation of what is probably going to be the final season. And yeah, Mary-Louise Parker actually requested specifically to get that tattoo for the show, from what she's said in interviews. She's so dreamy~. /siiiiggghhhh