I think it really depends on your background knowledge, and more specifically the suggested background knowledge for the course. I'm in it this term too and I think that for most people with at least the suggested background knowledge, the course is a bit of a breeze. Course reviews are very subjective. You can still glean some useful insight from them, but I would always remember that experiences are subjective. This is my first course in the program but I know from my undergrad that each term there will always be that course that seemingly everyone says is killer and requires a tremendous amount of effort just to get a passing grade, but you end up doing very well in it with moderate effort. Just like there will be courses which you find seemingly impossible that others find easy. What I would take away from this is: before a term starts, take some time to look ahead at the suggested prerequisite knowledge (most course pages have this information) and try to be as prepared as possible. None of the courses, to my knowledge at least, have mandatory prerequisites, but that doesn't mean that there isn't anything that might be useful to know to both keep up and get the most out of the material being taught.

As for studying for the exam, I would do as others have suggested both here and on OMSCentral and just quickly go through the modules and read Kurose. I was very disappointed in the quality of the modules for this course and I really hope it isn't at all representative of what I'll see in the rest of the course. The TAs are doing a great job though. Good luck!