From the (spoiler free) reviews I've seen, he's supposedly very much Malcom Tucker as The Doctor. I'm pretty much hoping they give him some stellar scripts because ultimately it was the shitty writing which fucked up half of Matt's time.
It's a shame Matt got shafted with shitty scripts - when the scripts were good, his acting prowess really shined through! So far, the reviews on MetaCritic are 8 / 10, which is pretty good.
Aye, it seemed overall that episode was excellent! However the comedic sounds at the start, think Spoiler when the doctor got KO'd was just so terrible.
I liked it, it was certainly darker then your typical who episodes- room for improvement, sure, but otherwise, I really liked it.. Also, epsiode 2 looks even better:
I think given Capaldi needs a bit more time, but I think it's more that the first ep is all about the transition period from previous doc to new doctor.
Considering that everyone moaned about Matt Smith when he first appeared, it's pretty much the norm for people to not like to new doctor.