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I've been hearing a lot that GSC are "shaking up the meta." On the surface they seem to be horde army that specializing on having tricks up their sleeves, mainly the whole "From The Shadows" rule or whatever it's called, in addition to being able to ally with AM or Nids to fill in any gaps. They're a relatively low unit variety army but that's made up for by the aforementioned allies. Is there anything I'm missing here? I'm very interested in starting a GSC army, just picked up Overkill.

They're very strong.

Cult Ambush is an amazingly powerful rule and allows for quick assaults. You have a huge edge in Maelstrom as your mobility is second to none. Your units can also 'regenerate'.

I think they are well worth running and are a good foil to Eldar.

The Genestealer Cult is a good foil to a bunch of the meta right now due to how well Cult Ambush works alongside Retreat to the Shadows against the very strong stuff in the format. One of the strongest things about Jetbikes is that they can avoid close combat and have jump-shoot-jump, but when a unit can appear always in the best position, that strength is negated. At that point, just 1 casualty can be enough to force some Leadership Tests and cause them to run!

A lot of other Deathstars, even the fast ones, have a hard time covering the entire table over the course of a turn, so Genestealer Cults can also play "keep away" rather effectively. Acolyte Hybrids with their heavy close combat weapons can also threaten Knights in assault too.

So, they're well positioned, even if they're not actually that powerful. Flyers, Gladius, and other forces can counter them pretty strongly. I think the Cult will pull some results in tourneys, but aren't going to displace any of the top competitors.

A melee army that has more targets than a shooty army can shoot in a single turn and starts within spitting distance and can have the opportunity to charge said shooty army before it's even moved 1/6th of the time does tend to have interesting results when the vast majority of armies have forgotten what bubblewrap is, let alone how to use it or why they need to include it in their lists. For many armies, melee is something that happens to other people.

Surprise mining lasers don't hurt either.