Alot of people believe the Narada was a fusion of 24th century Borg and Romulan technology which is why it by passed the Kelvin's shields. However that's not canon. Honestly it's obvious the reason why the Kelvins shields and weapons were useless was due to the 100 year difference in technology.
***** Yeah, Borg ships tend to grow into cube structures as shown in ENT. The Narada was only described as a mining vessel and it's weapons were clearly standard 24th century torpedoes. What I found great about the opening battle is that the Kelvin basically proved that federation ships can use their phasers as CIWs, so the Enterprise would easily be capable of the same if not to a greater extent since it's phasers could fire in rapid pulses as well as beams. Bye bye TIE fighters.
Yeah I mean like phasers can be used as advanced versions of CIWs, like point defense guns etc, and yeah, SW honestly is too tactically inferior to deal with ST and alot of other sci-fi series aswell.
***** There is a comic called Star Trek: Countdown... (I personally believe it was made just as plot armor, but I'm pretty sure it's canon... explains the Borg-like design...)
Yeah, the Narada as far as the movie explained was merely a 24th century Romulan mining vessel armed with what was most likely standard defensive weapons and explosive mining charges, but due to the 80+ year difference in technology, the Narada appeared formidable to 23rd century vessels. The Kelvin even managed to damage the Narada as well.
