It definitely feels like something along the lines of Fall of the Hammer, which isn't a bad thing, but it drops us into the crossover event without any of the actual series surrounding it. So it has to walk this tricky line of needing to spend pages on exposition telling us who these characters are, like in Winter Soldier, vs basically no explanation at all leaving us wondering who the heck all these new people are, like in Avengers. I think Loki is a really good issue because it's re/introducing some characters and has light exposition but also falls back on existing 2099 storylines (the aforementioned Fall of the Hammer) to prop up backstories for those like us who are familiar.
As for the actual story itself, divorced from issues I have with the character roster... eh. Like, the story itself isn't bad, really, it properly feels like the sort of thing that would go down in a continuing 2099 imprint. I just really don't like the use of The Cabal and Norman Osborne here. You have all these cool 2099 baddies that you could have showcased but instead you're just using the same ol' 2008 stable of main present-day Marvel mega-evils, and if I wanted to read "Spider-Man vs Norman Osborne" I'd just go read Amazing because that happens like every other week. And I guess that's just part of my larger niggle with this — basically every new hero introduced, as well as all the main villains, are either returning Modern Age characters or directly related to them. One of the things 2099 did really well was have the heroes & villains not really be related to their namesakes, with some exceptions, and be new twists on the concept. Even those who had similar backstories did their best to be a fresh take on things, like Eisenhart being the figurative monster while Hulk was the better personality. The new characters in this... Thirteen is literally just another Winter Soldier, from the same program as Bucky. She even gets Bucky's arm by the end of the issue. The new Widow is just Natasha's sister or somesuch. They haven't exactly flexed the ol' creative muscles on this.
That's not to say that these characters can't be good and interesting. I even quite like Thirteen, wouldn't mind seeing more stories with her. Same with the new Valkyrie and tales of the restored Asgard. And while I'm not personally interested, I'm sure Widow could have a strong and well-written run as well. And maybe we'll see that in future, maybe they'll get as much screentime and development as Roberta or Sonny and they'll come out of the oven as delicious filling meals, but right now they're just sorta half-baked.