Are patches moving in right (from your perspective) direction?
Without doubt. The games has gone from "Wow, interesting idea, but meh overall" to "Holy crap where did the hours go?" Every patch fixes annoying bugs, balances things that are out of whack and introduces new functions and mechanics that makes the game more interesting. Combat is still rather uninnovative, but it's an ARPG, what do you expect? I play as a Shadow, and as such I use a cloak&dagger style with cloaking devices, bombs and long range weapons to exploit my damage bonus while cloaked. (Surprise attack). That alone makes it a lot more interesting.
I've found that the political game is much more fun now with so many ways to win (or lose!) and so many things to do. The only thing I wish for now is to have the "Fear" win condition nerfed further. It's so easy to get a fear win when you're actually aiming for military win.