MaRo on the two big reasons UB is in Standard: "1) It was hugely more popular than we expected, 2) It turned out to be an even better entry point for new players than we thought"

As far as Universes Beyond goes I've seen a pretty positive result on the people I play with.

One of my friends who stopped playing after he had his collection stolen a number of years ago started to play again after I gave him a tyranid deck.

One of my friends from work got really into deck building and has been active since lotr and fallout sets. He is also super into Marvel, so he is looking forward to the upcoming sets. My play group at work are also much more proxy friendly after the 30th anniversary proxies set, so I made him a proxy of Kelsien, the Plague themed as Gambit.

Another friend from work has started to play physical magic since getting the Riders of Rohan deck.

And the person I play magic with the most has been building themed decks around pop culture or stories we want to tell for years with me.

I was pretty skeptical of UB before, but I am now more concerned with poor game balance and half baked original stories from WOTC.