I really, really, really don't like that they're trying to fit mechanical engineering into a spellcasting chassis. The whole "The Magic of Artifice" text-box makes my skin crawl:
"As an artificer, you use tools when you cast your spells. When describing your spellcasting, think about how you’re using a tool to perform the spell effect. If you cast cure wounds using alchemist’s supplies, you could be quickly producing a salve. If you cast it using tinker’s tools, you might have a miniature mechanical spider that binds wounds."
It gets worse as it goes on, and the whole time I'm wondering... why? Why not just give the Artificer their own unique abilities that allow them to manufacture mechanical spiders that bind wounds or produce healing salves? Why make these abilities "spells" and dump all the responsibility of making them cool and flavorful onto the players themselves? Also, what happens when the Artificer enters an anti-magic zone? Do the clockwork spiders suddenly stop working? Or the healing salves? Meh...
I wish they'd just make an all-out engineer class (with gunpowder and clockwork inventions a la World of Warcraft) or an all-out magic-item-creation class. Instead, they're trying to kill two birds with one stone and fit both archetypes into a single class. It just doesn't work.