I'm fairly new to picking up the game and play regularly with a friend. But as I'm purchasing my own cards and my own sets, I was hoping to really jump in with the newest set and then go back and buy others as the need arose. But as I'm looking at what the other sets come with I'm struck with the idea that The Dream Eaters seems to open with much fewer player cards to start with than previous sets?

You're right, with caveats. The Dream Eaters is experimenting with new mechanics that necessarily alter how many cards there are. To compare with the Path to Carcosa deluxe box - that expansion contained 4 player cards per faction, of which 3 were level 0 and 1 was level 1. Each of those cards came in 2 copies. There were also investigators and weaknesses but we'll ignore those. So 4 cards per faction, 2 copies of each card, 5 factions, that's a total of 40 cards.

Dream Eaters has the Myriad keyword, where cards come in 3 copies and you can have up to 3 copies in your deck. It also has the Bonded keyword, where some cards are set aside at the start of play and can be put in play or added to a deck by other card effects, so there are cards that can still come into play but aren't part of your deck when building it. Looking at it that way, you have slightly fewer cards per faction - Guardian has one Myriad card (3 copies) and one card that summons 3 bonded cards (1 copy of the summoner card, 3 copies of the bonded cards), and while those bonded cards are technically neutral they are bound to a level 1 Guardian card so it's somewhat academic - that's a total of 7 Guardian cards. Applying the same logic provides us with 7 Seeker cards (3 copies of a Myriad, 3 Summoner cards that summon 1 Bonded), 5 Rogue cards (3 copies of a Myriad, 1 summoner card and 1 bonded), 7 Mystic cards (3 copies of a Myriad, 2 Summoner cards and 2 Bonded) and 7 Survivor cards (3 copies of a Myriad, 1 Summoner card and 3 Bonded).

But that doesn't tell the whole story, since the Bonded cards aren't part of your deck when building it so if you only have Dream Eaters and Core, you have far fewer options for building your deck compared to Carcosa and Core. Carcosa provides each class with 2 copies of 3 different level 0 cards and 2 copies of 1 level 1 card, but Dream Eaters provides only 3 level 0 cards per class, and for the majority of classes only a single level 1 card to add to decks. So by that metric, Dream-Eaters only gives you half as many options.

So yes, if you want more player cards to help make more interesting and varied player decks, I don't recommend Dream Eaters as a first purchase - their weird and experimental mechanics mean that there's fewer things to put into your deck, and fewer choices to make.

Welcome to the game! You are correct that The Dream-Eaters gives fewer options for cards to put in your deck than previous deluxe expansions. The main reason for this is the Bonded cards, which aren't put in your deck but instead start out of play and are linked to another card in our deck.

All previous deluxe expansions offered each class either 3 or 4 new level 0 cards. Three of the four of them also included a new level 0 neutral card. The Dream-Eaters offers each class just 1 new level 0 card for deckbuilding, albeit each class except rogue can take three copies of the new card because of the new Myriad keyword.

Finally, even including the Bonded cards, there are only seven player cards per faction in the Dream-Eaters compared to eight in all other deluxes. So I'd say that your feelings are accurate.