I'm a well read grad student who's bluntly honest about all things, although I try to be most honest about myself.
This is predating and then finally set during the first movie. Or right after. It's passable, but not something I'll be rereading soon. When this first came out, I was more in love with the Bayverse than I am now, as I hadn't started reading the current IDW series which are far superior. Or started watching Prime, or even Animated I believe, both of which are far superior to Bayverse.
There's also a little confusion over when Megatron ripped out Bee's voicebox in this particular continuity, as I thought it was right before the Allspark was sent into space, but there's no mention of that here.
The artwork is less passable than the writing. Still, I had a bit of nostalgia rereading these, so I don't quite regret it as much as one might think.