I've been wearing New Balance shoes for years; I'm a big chap (6'4", 225#) with a long, relatively narrow foot and the fit and sizing (their MR1012) have always been perfect for me. Rather than buy my usual MR1012 I decided to take the more expensive route and try something different with the M1540 with disappointing results.

First what I like: the shoes are much lighter than the MR1012s and the forefoot is generous and comfortable and the shoe does look good. The heel is slightly wide but as I wear orthotics this wasn't much of a problem. The very big dislike is that they are shorter than the same size in the MR1012 so I can't use them for my run, only for casual walking around - but they do look good. And, as I can't use them for running, they're too expensive as well. So my solution was to purchase another pair of my old standbys, the MR1012s for the run and keep these (I had tried to make them work and should have returned them earlier) for expensive "social" shoes.