After playing around with it, I have determined that although I would not trade my current editor for it, it is more than sufficient for most jobs. When it comes to compositing it is superior to any of the major video editing software programs out the box. No, it won't replace After Effects, Nuke, Fusion, etc, but I doubt it is aimed at the professional compositor or visual fx artist. Who it will help greatly is the hobbyist who wants to create youtube videos or even film festival quality projects on a low budget. It's 3d environment is actually superior to After Effects prior to CS6. 3d lettering in AE used to require either third party plug-in or some tricks that created a "2.5D" setup. For those who grab this deal, they have some tutorials to get you started:
http://hitfilm.com/video-tutorials