Our 2006 Forester is really geared for taking off quickly in first gear...you'd think you had a bigger engine in it. On the HWY, it cruises in the mid-70's to 80 with no problems, loaded with three people and a big dog. We get just under 30 mpg in that instance. It will get just over 30 mpg hwy if you keep it under 70. Around town, my wife gets 22-25 mpg.
My Saab 9-2x, essentially the Subaru Imprezza wagon, which is a manual, gets much better mpg...I can get upper 20's in town, and 37.xx on the Hwy if I keep the speed down. At 80 +/- mph, I get low 30's.
I really like the engine. One BAD thing about them, though, these engines are known to be easy on oil, so, you can't really get a lot more service out of them by being especially BITOG-savvy with your oil choices. Run whatever you want, and the engine will probably outlast the length of time you want to keep the car.