I am a huge fan of desperados and shadow tactics. When i first tried shadow gambit i was a little dissapointed but after a few hours i found the game to be extremely fun and enjoyable. Its not as good as the other games of course not even close. But still very good. The atmosphere, characters and the ship are very creative. Also good dlc. Highly recommended.

Veteran of this genre here.
I have played almost every game from this genre starting with desperados back in the days.
First lets get one thing out of the way: I have not seen any impact from sweet baby inc that would twist the game in a certain way to ones agenda.

This one has the same promise as Robin Hood: Legend of Sherwood. You have a base (ship) and plan your missions. There are also fewer maps but some are gigantic and you will complete multiple missions on them.

Missions: DO NOT try to clear a whole map for every mission. The maps are designed so you plan your mission and your way on your own. You get to the objective and then leave. Many people complain about replaying a map for the 5th time but this isn't bad since you don't really play the same part of the map in every mission except if you are bad at planning. The different locations are astonishing.

Characters: You will collect pearls and soul energy as a reward from missions to revive characters on the ship. This is how you get new characters and you will play a tutorial right on the ship. You can only pick 3 characters per mission on your own. To make you play different ones each one that wasn't picked will accumulate one skill energy point per mission that you get once you pick them for a mission. You can also abandon a mission and then pick again if you feel like you made a mistake.

Skills: The skill energy points will fill a progress bar and once full you will get a skill point. You can then invest 1 of 8 of these into a single skill that will boost one skill of a crewmate. For some characters they are a necessity for others they are near useless.

Story & Dialogue: I have not finished the story yet but lets say it is way more interesting that desperados. You are literally an undead crew on a talking ship against the inquisition. There are a lot more dialogues than in previous games but they are actually entertaining and humorous. If you don't like it simply press and hold space to skip.

I thought I just beat the game when I finished the main story.

Then I saw I had 35% overall completion. The game has only just begun.