It's definitely what it means...A rebirth! Now, they need to work on the rebirth!
For most players who played this game were disappointed with the game, and who can't blame them, most of the characters were broken, the lot only have their classic moves and the legendary characters, like Kyo, Terry, and Iori are back, but some others like K', Oswald, and others were taken out, most of all what gave players the most gripe in this game...NO FANSERVICE! in other words, no Mai, and the other KOF girls that make fans of all of us, were not there.
But bringing an originality and style to the series was good, but I think SNK Playmore overdid it, and made it to where there is NO boss character, but it gives most players a relief, while others pulling their hair. The series has a lot to do now that XII is published and XIII needs to be perfected!
KOF XII is a fair game for the series but it needs a lot of work, it's a good game for the genre, but a bad game for the series. If you really want another good fighting game, Street Fighter IV, BlazBlue, and Tekken 6 are good games for the XBox 360, and if you don't have a 360, these are also for the Playstation 3, and if you just have the Wii, wait in January for Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars.