I believe it means a little easier in the beginning, and a little harder towards the end (where you can simply not take any damage from many opponents if you are a few levels higher). Adjusting the strong level dependence of combat is at least part of the rebalancing.
The easy difficulty mode is being changed to a casual mode, where opponents are still easier, and at least an escort mission in FoV is given greater health/time restrictions. Presumably there could be greater time limits in a couple other situations, or sinking platforms could get fixed in place, etc.
