After reading some of the many responses and comments to my original post, it sounds like this book is exactly what I was looking for after all. Believe me, I was not worried that it would be too in-depth or not be an overview of .NET.
When I re-read the ASPAlliance review, it wasn't that which worried me so much - it was comments in the Amazon reviews like:
While "E COM" covers things you must know about COM, "E .NET" often tells "deductions" about things you aren't supposed to know.
and:
It tells you too much about CLR if you just want to use it and not enough if you want to port it to another platform.
that really got me more than anything else.
But I guess that's why I asked here in the first place... so it sounds like I have my next book! Thanks everyone!