I'm going to wait for a test ride before passing judgment on this, till then I' would be merely speculating on something I've only read about...
I got to spend a week with the NC700X recently. I really like it.
Honda and Cycle World Magazine put together something called the Cycle World Adventure Challenge. They invited four average-joe type riders to Southern California and had us ride the new bike on a lot of different sorts of roads and under different conditions. The idea was to show off some of the bike's features and benefits, get our impressions, and encourage us to talk about the experience. I had a great time and I've been talking about it a lot since I got home.
Disclosure: Honda and Cycle World paid our travel expenses, treated us like rock stars, and hooked us up with a bunch of cool new riding gear. They showed us a good time. But they never told us what to say. They did encourage us to talk about what we liked and didn't like about the motorcycle.
The NC700X is really fun to ride, very affordable, has some very cool features, and looks to be quite well made. It's not a high-performance motorcycle, it's not a great choice for dirt roads, and it won't make you look like Jonah Street or That Star Wars Guy. If you like big, powerful motorcycles, this probably isn't the bike for you. If you want a dual-sport bike to ride some trails it's not the best choice. If you are able to own several bikes optimized for different kinds of riding you probably won't find a reason to buy this one.
If you want a bike that can fill several different roles pretty well, won't be riding any dirt more technical than a hard-packed two-wheel drive Forest Service road (or perhaps some well-maintained gravel), and don't want to spend a lot of money, then this new Honda is definitely worth a look and a test ride.
Before this event I was a bit concerned about riding in LA freeway traffic. Where I live we don't really have any freeways and I hadn't ridden under those conditions before. I also don't have much experience riding in stop-and-go commute traffic. The Honda worked great in LA, especially the dual-clutch version with the paddle shifters and the option to let the bike shift gears for you.
We did one very long day of more than 370 miles riding along the ocean, through some twisty canyons, across the Central Valley, and then up into the Sierra. The bike is comfortable for a long day and didn't wear me out the way the same ride would have on my KLR650. I would happily take this thing down Mex 1 all the way to Cabo San Lucas and back, or across the US.