As someone who holds the stories and characters of Brandon Sanderson with high regard, I do not think that Steelheart was on the level of his past works. It's an unfair criticism, I know, because take away the author name and I perhaps would have rated this book higher than I did. It's a solid story, albeit with simplistic characters. The world was an interesting take on the superhero genre, and if I read the consequent books in the series, I hope that we explore that world with more depth. Unfortunately, as mentioned, I found the characters under developed and not overly interesting. None of them were weak, per say, however, I rarely found myself caring about their wellbeing and some key dramatic moments which obviously were supposed to evoke an emotional reaction out of me did not accomplish their goal. Perhaps it was simply my disinterest in the main character David's perspective that clouded my judgement of the characters. His story of revenge was compelling enough, but every time he interjected a seemingly tense scene with a description of how hot he found the main female character, Megan, I groaned and rolled my eyes. This isn't a major detraction from my overall opinion of the book, but it did grow very weary after a while. 
 There were some very nice plot twists that cleverly explained questions I had thought of earlier in the book, and by the end basically everything was wrapped up (other than TO BE CONTINUED.... plot points). The story had a very interesting setting along with creative initial conceit, and hopefully in the upcoming books the characters become more complex and interesting.