Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost have been doing some of the best X-Men comics (outside of Joss Whedon) for the past few years.  New X-Men has been a real treat, and sort of the go to book for any die hard X-fan since it more than anyone else was really in touch with what was going on in the X corner of the Marvel U.  I recomend the New X-Men trades, I recomend the back issues.

I'm not yet ready to recomend X-Force.

Yost and Kyle have a great handle on the characters, everyone acts like you'd expect them to except perhaps Rhane but that'll be explained I'm sure.  Yet they don't really have a great handle on the action, and that's partially because it's hindered by the static painted style art.  There's a fight, I couldn't tell you what happens other than the X-Force kills a lot of people and then something happens which has no explanation.  How did Rhane get into the position she's in at the end of the book when the last time we saw her was hanging out and not saying much with Cyclops and Logan?  I'm hoping it'll be explained, but it means that there's a time jump that's not dealt with at all and things got left out.

I'd like to add that I'm starting to hate painted art.  Sometimes it can be great such as almost anything Alex Ross has done or with Gabriele Dell'Otto's work in Secret War, but for the most part it just ends up looking static and wooden.  It works for covers, but rarely for interiors.