> There's more content, but the mechanics seem identical to how it was years ago.
No
> does it make the game any worse, or any less enjoyable?
Both
Notch could have followed up on his promise to open source the game when he got bored of it and still struck a licensing deal with Microsoft for the brand/etc. Microsoft could then go ahead with everything they're doing, but there'd also be a Open Source fork that'd maintain Linux support and make the shit changes optional.