I took a quick walk around the first and second levels before the game so here's a 2cents review:
-Seats are more durable but slightly less comfy. I imagine they will wear better. The cup holders on the lower bowl seats are nice and probably contribute to the less leg room perceived. In the upper bowl the seats are more upright and probably add at best 1/2" more space to the seat in front. There are fold down arms that were still missing the top cover. If you're tall (or think you are) you just have to deal with the leg room issue. It's the law of averages. If your fat, lose some pounds. There was a big 'ole woman up a few rows from me. And I mean hanging skin HUGE, wolfing down extreme nachos. I imagine the seat arms wouldn't go down but she managed. The boyfriend was skinny so again I guess it's the law of averages.....
-The light board is nice. Very crisp picture. On a wide shot the players appear to be the same size or slightly bigger than they actually are on court below. Stats and box score show up real nice. It's not necessarily an impressive piece of infrastructure but the screen quality makes up for it.
- Where the ambience fails is in the lighting. New LED fixtures illuminate everything perfectly for video and broadcasting or for taking a photo. Everything is crisper and well defined. But in person as a user experience it feels like you're in the stock room of a cheap furniture store. Light temperature is a cooler 6000K to 7000K as opposed to a warmer 3000K. Concrete looks awful in cooler temperature lighting. Like a gas station.
-The concourse and concession areas are slicker and give the appearance of more space. The new bar areas are really cool and hip. Graphics are nice. More Spurs wall hangings, please. In some places there really is more space. Mostly the east and west ends. The fan shop is nice but crowded as always. Didn't make it down to the lowest level concession. On the second floors they have a few bars that open onto the arena which is nice. I didn't go outside to the west entry patio to see what they did there. The east entry main lobby is nice but where the are the trophies?! Maybe I missed them. 90% of the walls are now white. With most of the colored walls gone it will look dirtier quicker. Lighting in the 2nd floor concourse seem to work better than the 1st floor concourse since the light fixtures were nicer. The only thing is the floors. Without the colored walls some of the terrazzo looks awful and doesn't make sense. Probably ran out of $$$.
Didn't eat there this time but the beer is still good. The new brand of peanuts suck. Get Ricos back.
The nuts is there are some things that work great and some that just don't.
Overall grade: B