A friend of mine is talking about starting up a campaign in Shadowrun 4th Edition once we reach a good stopping point in our DnD 4E campaign. I'm interested in playing, and I'm wondering what to watch out for issues-wise, both in making my character and playing the game.
I've played 2nd edition extensively, I used to run and play back in the early to mid 90s, and I still have a bookshelf full of 2nd Edition books. Back then, the problems you ran into included the decker/rest of the party split, the general uselessness of vehicle-based riggers once the party was on foot, and the 4/1 turn ratio between cybered up street sams and everyone else.
I know they fixed a lot of those issues in 3rd edition, notably by changing the turn order and including drones and wireless decking to make riggers and deckers more useful mid-run, but I haven't read the SR4 book at all yet and I'd love to know if there's anything I need to watch out for. If I do make a decker, is there any piece of gear out of a splat-book that is a must have? Are there any social mechanics to supplement the social skills of the player playing the Faceman, and do they actually work? That sort of thing.