Just catching up on this thread now, so I have a lot of thoughts. 
Overall I like the redesign, but it is in my nature to be nitpicky! Starting from the top:
To me, the row of links at the bottom of this screenshot initially reads like it goes with the “Welcome to IFDB” section. Could it be in that top (mostly empty) bar instead? I’d like to see it visually set apart more so that it’s clear these are the main ways to navigate the site.
…Okay, I wrote that before I’d actually clicked any of the links. I wasn’t expecting them to just scroll the page, so maybe stating that’s what they do would be nice? “Scroll to: Games Reviews” etc.
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The formatting of this section is inconsistent and thus confusing to me. I would bold “IFDB Site News” and not “redesigned home page”, and have the indent/margin match up.
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I don’t really see a need to duplicate listing new comp pages here. Sometimes new comp pages get added for years-old comps, so I would only put competition news in this section.
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I’d remove the pfps from this section, because just one item having an image makes it look odd/out of place. I also wouldn’t display the “5 items” for the recommended list.
Games/Reviews/Comps/Polls:
Having each of these four sections be both “here’s the latest listings of this thing” and “here’s how to view this thing generally” is confusing IMO.
Right now it’s not clear that the games and reviews being shown are the most recent ones. I’d update the headings to “New Game Listings” and “Latest Reviews”, and then put the “New”, “Hot”, “Random” etc. links at the bottom of the Games column, after “See the full list”. And is there a reason “Browse games” isn’t included as a link here?
Same thing here with giving a title that makes clear this is showing the most recently added comp pages. Also then “A new competition page” wouldn’t be necessary.
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I’d make “new polls” and “polls with recent votes” bold to set them apart as headings more, and put the “See more” links at the bottoms of their respective lists.
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The other sections could maybe use an explanatory intro like this one has? Then perhaps titling them “Latest games”, “Latest reviews” etc. wouldn’t be necessary because the intro would say something like “IFDB is primarily a database of IF games. Here are the latest that have been added:”