Man, talk about getting caught off guard by how much you enjoyed a game. (Partially because I played Persona 1 before it) I went into Soul Hackers expecting to like it but not love it, and I finished very much liking the game. The dungeons and combat I had fun with, the story (even if it isn't as deep as SMT and Persona) was a good time, and had some real good songs.
My only gripes would be the final boss (because it's two bosses with no save between), the inability to skip cutscenes (even on 3DS), and the flawed App system (in there's basically like 4 you'd wanna stick to for the rest of the game), but otherwise than that, I think this is a great time, and (speically given it's not very long and a bit easy) a great starting point to MegaTen...
Shame the only officially translated version (at least in the States) is the 3DS version, though.