It's a solid fighter if you love the Persona universe. It is heavily story-driven, which is an oddity among games in this genre. I would have liked to have seen more voice-acting (a lot of the presentation is done with text). As for the price, I always thought this one was going to drop fairly quickly, given the caliber of titles being released in the Winter and the lack of mainstream attention to 2D fighters generally. I think you should be able to get it for $19.99. Not sure I would pay more for it than that.
Haven't tried KOF-13 yet, but based on reviews and quality of presentation, I would recommend that over this game, if only because of the lesser balanced gameplay here.