I think this new format will allow us to enjoy the Champions League match schedule a little longer because until now we have not entered the round of 16 and are still waiting for 2 more matches and are still following the play-off round to see who qualifies and this match break is also quite long even though it is already mid-season, this season's competition in the UCL does look very tight even Real Madrid and Man City are in a less safe position and if they face each other in the play-off round later I think we will not see one of them in the round of 16.
I can't fully evaluate the new format of the Champions League yet, but my first impression is that I don't really like how everything is going. It's unusual to see one leader in the table, while before we had many groups and each had its own leader, this is what created the impression that many leaders of their countries were playing in this tournament, but now everything has been compressed into one table and this is losing its scale for the Champions League, that's my opinion for now.
That's not hitting the nail on the head here. In the past we had 8 groups and each group had 1 leader. Now we have 8 leaders so to say, which means nothing changed until here. The difference now is that there are play offs for the next 16 ranks from 9th to 24th, which represent the 2nd ranked of the former 8 groups in the old format.
I wasn't too convinced that I will like the new format, but I think it brings something new to the table that gives the competition a bit more excitement. Good teams can knock each other out or push each other into the play offs. I think it is a good change.
In the old format you could almost always tell how it will go because there were often 1 or 2 overwhelming favorites and they made it 90% of the time. But this time it is dangerous for any of the top teams to drop into the play offs because what can happen is that the play off game is something like Real Madrid vs. Manchester City and then one of them knows it is game over after this.
There is far more excitement until the last match day than it was in most of the group stages in the old format. Usually teams like Bayern Munich or so were essentially qualified after the fourth game had been played. It was kind of boring.