The movie left me with mixed feelings. Don't get me wrong. I'm a die hard fan myself (although not the convention type
), I just think that there was so much potential and so many things could have been handled way better, than just throwing together another "time travel" storyline which pretty much invalidates everything we know about the franchise. Time travel has been beaten to death so much, in so many Sci-fi movies and series over the years, it's not even funny anymore. Moreover, it is highly susceptible to plot holes and spawns debates and arguments about things that cannot really be explained scientifically or even rationally. Simply put, huge "reset" buttons are not fun or original anymore.
Nero was a "cheesy" villain anyway you look at it. I believe that they tried to take advantage of Shinzon's popularity and attitude in the last TNG movie, yet the feeling is not the same. The rest of the actors try very hard (lots of lines used from the original series) but imho they have some really big shoes to fill in. The thing to remember is that the Trek movies were also about characters, something that it was strongly emphasized in the more recent series. Character development is certainly not the strongest point of this prequel.
The movie was impressive in terms of special effects and action which was somewhat predictable since it's usually a huge selling factor. All in all a very good effort but still, in my eyes, there was something missing from the movie, there was something "out of place" that I can't really define 100%. If I had to choose between this prequel and another TNG movie, I believe I would go for the later.