Now that we have both, I'm looking to get one to play over the Thanksgiving break. The only thing that kept me from getting the first one is hearing that the controls sucked. Were those fixed with No Regret?

Agreed, but once you become accustomed they work just fine - far from the worst control scheme I've ever played.

I am playing the first game in the series (the word up is that it is the better of the two but that both are great fun to play).
Lots of fun for sure! Very simple and addictive! The game does show it's age but it also has a very special charm to it. The gameplay is solid. True, the controls are kinda wonky. I would explain them as not very "exacting" and pretty imprecise..but as folks have mentioned here, once you get accustomed to the feel the controls are not too difficult to work with. It hasn't spoiled my enjoyment and it did't take long to get use to them.
Hope that helps!! Enjoy!

I found it helps to use the numpad rather than arrow keys, since you have easy access to pageup/down etc. for the combat rolls and stuff, rather than having to hold ctrl or alt.

Once you get the hang of it, the controls are actually pretty awesome - you can pull off some crazy cool moves in big firefights.

Yup, the controls were surprising for their day in being a little complex, and the numberpad is the way to go. But they weren't bad controls. And compared, for example, to the WASD 1st person control schemes, which eventually grew to taking up half your keyboard plus your mouse, and then having to integrate the "console commands" that 1st person games moved onto, Crusader's commands are pretty simple.

Let's not even talk about HOTAS (hands on throttle and stick) programming and gameplay for flight simulators ...