Gameplay really shouldn't be too much of an issue. While Matsuno is notorious for building games with surprisingly deep mechanics, they tend to be balanced well enough so that even the most basic of builds can net you victory. You've played MegaTen, you are more equipped than you think about what to expect from his games. The Judges are also only in Tactics Advance and its sequel, and even then, they are only an issue in TA and there are a ton of ways to get around them.

What usually sets Matsuno's games from other series is that he tends to write more gray and gray stories centering around ethics and historical background. His villains and heroes are rarely paradigms of good and evil, and in the words of one review I read about Tactics Ogre, no matter how fair and balanced you try to be, you'll always find out your someone's villain regardless of your good intentions. He also tends to base the backdrops of his stories on real life historical events such as Tactics Ogre being based on the collapse of Yugoslavia and the ethnic cleansing that resulted in the bloody wars that followed. FFTactics is based on the War of the Roses. Not all of his games do this of course, as Vagrant Story is more like fantasy Metal Gear and deals with political conspiracy and the conflict between peaceful cults and and harsher orthodox religions. FFTactics Advance is a pretty twisted take on the Lotus Eater Machine trope. Its interesting how characters like Marche, Weigraf, and Sydney tend to have very complicated views among the fanbase.

Regardless, his stories tend to portray the characters as flawed, but often well intended people. You've played XII so you have a taste of what I'm talking about. While I do enjoy XII's story, I will agree its not up to par with his past works, but then again, I read somewhere that he left the project before he finished the script.