Since the update, I've put in a lot of hours. It feels more epic in scale than even the fight on Malevelon, and that's probably down to the sole focus of the update being on Super Earth as a crisis event. There's also the scale of the enemies like the Leviathans and overships, the scale of the artillery cannon used to take out the overships, the massive skyscrapers of the super cities, and the reality of the homeworld as the most important place in the lore. Civilians are running around, SEAF forces are actively fighting, and even your destroyer's ship master and democracy officer have new unique dialogue that have the tone of grim concern at the event.
No wonder it's been hugely popular and there has been more comaraderie with players lately. The repel enemy ships are wild on level 10 though, and the defense missions are the toughest in a long time, so those have been the two most common failures for squads. If you aren't specced out for Illuminates, and avoiding civilian losses, you're gonna have it rough.