Am I missing something? GSF << SotM?

 
Am I missing something?  I have been reading the forum and tried playing two games, once with my kids and once solo.  Both times just did not seem any fun.  We have played a bunch of SotM and even when we are defeated we have a good time.  Not so with GSF.
 
Turns
SotM had some complex actions, but it was basically Villain Turn, Hero 1 Turn, ..., Hero N Turn, Environment Turn, and then repeat.  For the most part you only had to look at one set of cards at a time.  Assuming you had the cards on your table in that order, it was fairly easy to work through the turns.  There were also tokens that were critical in reminding you of start/end turn actions and any damage bonuses from other players.  Assuming you used the tokens correctly, a game of SotM could move fairly quickly.
 
GSF has the turn split up into phases and you have to look all over the table for every phase of every turn.  Each of the Opposition cards may or may not have a circle on it with a letter in the middle that you need to find.  If it was just a letter in a circle it would be annoying to look for, but to make it even worse there is a background icon that makes it hard to read the letter :(  But the circle is small enough that the icon is hard to see as well because there is a big letter on top of it :(  Some sort of legible counter like SotM could help tremendously, but you still have to look all over the table every phase which just seems to slow things down.
 
Ordering
SotM has a strict ordering that cards are supposed to be played in.  There are some cases when resolving a card that the players have a choice as to who it affects but those can be handled easily one card at a time.
 
GSF (I think) is much more up to the players as to the ordering of cards and that just seems annoying to me, especially since the cards cover the entire table.  With everything being simultaneous the players have to deal with a lot of choices determining what order to play things in.
 
Theme / Difficulty
At a high level super heroes and space rebels both seem equally fun.  But SotM and GSF play very differently.  SotM starts out a little slanted towards the Villain, but then both sides steadlily ramp up, with the Super Heroes hopefully a little faster.  GSF starts out slanted towards the Opposition, and both sides ramp up after that, but it seems very easy to get crushed if you make a wrong move.  While I understand rebels against a powerful foe is the theme, it just seems too easy to get overwhelmed and defeated, which is not fun when I am playing with my kids.
 
Packaging
Not 100% fair since I am comparing 2nd Edition SotM vs 1st Edition GSF, but GSF did come after SotM so it should not be a downgrade.
 
GSF packaging has a few issues:
- I really do not like the double sided cards.  Having one set of cards perform two wildly different functions seems strange.  I do not see why there was not a separate Station Card Deck and Generic Opposition Deck.  Some people have commented that you can eventually remember which opposition card is on the back of a given station card and use that knowledge when requisitioning.  That seems a little weak and is asking players to memorize a bunch of stuff which just does not seem fun.
- Missing foam.  SotM had these really nice pieces of foam that went into the box to hold all of the cards in place (or at least until you got all of the various expansions).  GSF had no foam so cards flopped around until I liberated a SotM for now.  I think the card holder is a little wider in GSF though so the foam is not a perfect fit.
 
Conclusion
I am not trying to say that SotM and GSF need to be the same game.  I understand and expected there to be differences.  I just did not expect that each of those differences would seem to me to be a negative one.  At this point I am ready to stick GSF on the shelf and forget about it which is disappointing, but I am hoping that there is something that I am missing so the game can be redeemed.