Good fighting game for casuals.
The story is meh and gameplay ok. The game has plenty of characters to choose from. Despite being called Street Fighters, people will run away from you non-stop and throw fireballs instead. They call it zoning but it is rather annoying for anyone to deal with.
In Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike, fireballs weren't much of an issue since pro players could just parry them (similar to blocking but not taking any chip damage). In this game, parrying doesn't exist. Instead we have to use the new feature: Focus-attack. Basically you hold down medium kick and punch to start focusing your attack and absorb only 1 hit. By absorbing you will take some damage but regenerate back to your previous health...until you get hit again. This is better for casuals but any professional gamer would like to parry instead.
If you own PS3 or Xbox 360, you might consider Mortal Kombat 9 as a casual gamer since it offers much more content (and blood, which means banned in Australia). Advanced players should move on to King of Fighters series. I would buy both games if they were ever ported on PC.
Overall SSFIV: AE is a watered-down version of SFIII: 3rd strike.