I got Dwarf Fortress when it came out on Steam.
I've played the earlier versions off-and-on since just after college; between that and the UI/tutorial/help improvements in the Steam release I made it through my first winter with good stocks of food.
Now going into the second year I'm trying to do a bit more of the complex logistics. I'm setting up officials - hooray for having counts of my stockpiles and being able to do work orders.
I'm also trying to figure out a military Just In Case, but it's making me acutely aware that I still haven't found any iron. I also have no idea how deep is dangerously deep to dig.
I'm enjoying the game's ability to scale to my understanding; it feels like early on it was fine to just kind of muddle along and set up the basics, and I get the feeling I could continue on that way for a while before something wandered along and wiped me out, but as I get more comfortable managing small stuff I start to get curious about undertaking more complex tasks. Or the game will throw me a curveball, like one of my dwarfs going mad and randomly dying of (I assume self-imposed) thirst. So I had to take a detour to figure out how to do burial. Did I do a good job? Who knows!
It's been a lot of fun so far, and I'm looking forward to digging in more.
(I'm also realizing I have no idea how to intersperse images in my post...I thought I'd just be able to upload them 'in place' or move them...Maybe I should look into how to post good here)