TL;DR: Shadowrun Anarchy is to Shadowrun 5th edition as Dungeon World is to D&D 5th edition. It's rules light and focuses more on the narrative and storytelling while still preserving everything that makes Shadowrun awesome, yet at the same time does have a couple flaws that fortunately aren't deal breakers (for most people anyways).

So I've been playing Shadowrun since 3rd edition was released back in the early 2000s, but after my gaming group grew up and we all went our separate ways (we were teenagers back then) I pretty much stopped paying attention to Shadowrun until just recently when I finally got around to playing SR Returns/Hong Kong/Dragonfall on Steam. I picked up this book and SR 5th edition on sale just to see what I'd been missing. Honestly, SR Anarchy is a pleasant surprise. For one, Anarchy trims down on a lot of the rules in order to focus more on the narrative and storytelling. Players (and GMs) will still roll pools of d6s to resolve various tests, and players have the option of creating cyberware-enhanced (meta)humans or magic users like usual. What really stood out to me was how organic and simple the game is while still retaining everything that made it cool. I've made no less than three (3) attempts to read through the actual SR 5th edition book, and my eyes glazed over every single time because the rules try way too hard to simulate reality (do you really need rules to detail exactly how much damage a rat or character is going to take if you drop them and a grenade into a small enclosed space? They're dead, end of story). With Anarchy, the rules are condensed and much easier to comprehend or teach to new players, which is a huge plus to me. Also, the rules give players a bit more control over the game through essentially plot points that can be used to make minor changes such as taking damage for another character or giving yourself a point of health or armor. In all honesty, if you're familiar with how Dungeon World plays, then you'll feel right at home with Anarchy. If you're wanting something with more rules and crunch, stick with SR 5th edition (good luck though, you'll be constantly trying to look up rules for situations such as how much reach a troll wielding a katana has over a human with a similar weapon and what benefits in combat this confers to the troll).

My only real gripe with Anarchy is that some things could be explained a bit better or in further detail. For example, the rules for creating Shadow Amps (those extra augmentations that give you an edge such as cyberware or magic spells) aren't 100% clearly explained and you're left either looking at the pre-gen characters to try and "reverse engineer" those things or looking at online forums for clarity. Once you get the idea behind how it works though, it's not too complicated to figure out or use. I did take off a star because of this though, the publisher could've put in a little more time and effort to really give Anarchy the polish it deserves before rushing it out the door. Another issue I had was regarding weapon ranges. Pistols by default are only good at short range and start getting penalties if used at medium and long range. The game defines short range as anything within melee range or at most a couple feet away, medium range is pretty much out to 100 feet, and long range is anything beyond that. So according to SR Anarchy, pistols are pretty much only useful in melee combat! This is easily remedied though by giving melee weapons and guns their own separate definitions of "range", such as defining "short range" for a pistol to be say anything 50 feet away or under etc. Still, some people will find this quite bizarre.

Overall, if you're like me and can't stand how overly complicated 5th edition Shadowrun is, or if you prefer more narrative-driven games and are okay with lighter rules that favor moving the story forward over rules crunch a la Dungeon World, then don't hesitate to get Anarchy, it's well worth the price!