Near the end of '41,here's what I encountered:
1.Got rid of all of my negative strat.effects in june 36'.
2.Japan was in a stalemate in China until the second half of 41' when they conquered Shanxi.
3.They declared war on me in November(no day of infamy).
4.I Boosted only Germany-they were rather slow with Poland and France,but Barbarossa has gone good for them-Conquered Leningrad and they are fighting at the gates of Moscow atm(russians conquered Finland tho,so the war is far from over)
5.First Vienna award effect popped for me in October 41',no idea why-the event was fired in 39.
6.Saw no german subs in the Pan-American zone,only downed a couple of transports.
My suggestions:
1.Make the negative strat.effects more costly,they can be removed quickly,cuz America can have +50 money income via trade even with all of the minus modifiers
2.Japan needs some kind of a boost(be it a scripted invasion of Shanghai or whatever) and also it would be nice if they attack US at the right date.
3.The steroid system needs more flexibility and options(boost only JAP and GER/GER and ITA/ITA and JAP for axis;boost only UK for allies;an actual option to remove the effects after a certain point-be it the outbreak of WW2,Barbarossa etc.)
4.Some sort of decision to turn the NG to INF would be also nice.
Otherwise I think the DLC is really interesting,but then again I wasn't expecting anything less from Devildread and co.