Depends on what you call a tier, I 'spose.

The last vs. human match I had, they just constantly used Urien. Which was, well, fucking lame and retarded. Because he knew how to use him. It's sorta sad when people don't mix up their gameplay with various characters, and only stick to one. However, I'm pretty sure Akuma is banned from tournaments and so is Gill, so it isn't all that bad.

The only really "overpowered advantage" I'd give to characters would be namly Urien, Ken and Chun-Li. Ryu is pretty average, and sort of difficult to use. If Ibuki didn't do so little damage I'd probably use her all the time. But in comparison to, say, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, I'd definitely consider 3rd Strike balanced.

Chun_li and Yun are the powerhouses that win in that game as of now. Ken is top tier but hes winning less and less tournaments than he did previously.

I liked this game a lot more than SCII. For one thing, chronicle of the swords beat whatever edgemaster mode was called in SCII. I really enjoyed the customizable character options, too. The AI seemed better than SCII's as well, and the difficulty wasn't determined by what special handicaps (you start with a tiny amount of health! your character has a bomb attached!) the game decided to give you for that level. Unfortunately, button mashing still works (meaning skill isn't really required).
Story mode was fun, was it was seemed silly that they were actually trying to make a coherent story.
My biggest disappointment was that Hwang wasn't brought back alongwith Rock and Seigfreid.

werepandamike, you need to play the game more. Hwang, Rock and Seigfried are in this game.