For me this was probably a good thing, since I always overspeed in the W/F after take off. I did did the departure manually and in the air the plane seems very steady, or should I say slow, when you handle it. But my flight was in Norway and I did have the AI traffic set to a very low level. One thing that puzzled me was that I never did see any other planes on the TCAS. and instead used MCT, but I suspect it was a pilot error after all The PFD, ND, ECAM and MCDU are very similar to the W/F and operating the plane seems very straight forward if you have tried the W/F. No more reloading of your plane like on the W/F. Of course the load manager loads fuel and passenger/cargo correctly and dynamically.
I think I will need to keep an eye on that to see if it consistently gives you too much fuel. There is a fuel planner (and load manager) included, and on my flight I certainly had more than enough fuel. I may have to find my DVD with Thomas Cook Airbus A320 again and watch that again to see how much engine noise can be heard - I suspect it is actually less than the W/F (but I do enjoy a good, strong engine roar one take off!). Maybe W/F is actually setting the engine noise too high. On the other you can activate some crew sounds which do a nice job of adding a little extra atmosphere. Soundwise I was a little surprised that the engines could not be heard more clearly. I hope vRoute or somebody else will create a way to export flight plans to the airbus.
I also found no way to load or import a flightplan, but of course I need to study the manual more closely.
I think I succeed saving a flight plan, but was never able to find it anywhere on the hard drive. However saving and loading flight plans seems a mystery to me. And then the MCDU did show arrivals and departures. I did a little hack (documented in the manuals, so no big thing) and switched to the Navigraph navdata. This is the only thing which which may trigger me to file a problem in the Aerosoft forums. But the Aerosoft is clearly in the usable zone, except in the font on the MCDU, which is not very clear, in fact I could not clearly read the ETA because 3 looks like 9 on the display. The only drawback in the visuals is the cockpit, where I feel the W/F has a slightly better appearance. Aerosoft has clearly been inspired by the way PMDG integrated extra options via the MCDU and it works very well. You also get some nice extras like chocks and little cones by the wingtips. Compared to the Wilco/Feelthere I notice that doors work flawlessly, that was not always the case on the W/F. So I got the new Aerosoft Airbus X Extended and had my first flight yesterday.