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I was running the sorceror (sorc 5/oracle 1) and will say that was a terrible encounter all around. I'm as conflicted about it as the DM. I knew pretty much by round 2 it was going to be a TPK. And strictly by the rules it should have been. That said, I'll shade in some of the details as to how things went so wrong.
First, I knew something was up as soon as we encountered the area in question. I stopped the party and suggested we send the rogue ahead to spy out the area. I casted vanish on the rogue and he went ahead. He found the monster, but the monster made a successful perception check to locate him when he tried to sneak back to us. (I know that doesn't sound right, wait...).
The rogue gets attacked and basically one shotted. The monster then immediately drops darkness. The dwarf cleric decides the best way to get to our dying party member is to use create pit to slip beneath the gate rather than attempting tbe other route through the darkness.
I've only been playing PF for about a year and have managed to deal with darkness with invisibity and area spells. I also did a mental check before we left Absalom as to our DV character count. I thought that with both the Barb and cleric having DV we were good. Even if I can't see, I can support them.
So before the barb goes swinging beneath the gate and through tbe pit, I cast vanish on him, thinking he now has a significant advantage over whatever we are fighting. I was wrong. Beford the Barb can charge, the DM reads that the monster can see invis. Mistakes happen, and I've no problem with that, but it did affect how we positioned ourselves initially.
I somehow made it through the pit to assist the rest of the party in the fight on the other side before the pit disappeared. But like the DM indicated, the Barb, for RP reasons, stuck with his magic great sword instead of that certain cold iron weapon we liberated earlier that our cleric fortunately decided to tote.
The barb went into a rage, but had some supersition ability that handicapped our clerics ability (and mine) to heal him. The dice turned on us pretty hard, too, and got hot for the DM, not just the D20s, but the damage dice. The monster was hitting the barb like a truck.
I tried casting glitterdust (twice, to blind), grease, burning hands, and even a suicidal create pit when the barb dropped. The monster made every save and I failed tbe SR check. I have DC17 for lvl 2 spells, so that was like 4 or 5 coin tosses that didn't fall my way. The cleric exhausted his healing channels and spells keeping the barb up. The rogue was brought to pksitive hp, but literally could not stand without provoking certain death. I think our other party member was trying to help him, but kept got cut to ribbons by AOOs and reach weapon.
By the time I switched to casting blind clw spells on a newly revived and exhausted barb, the DM had the monster teleport away. None of us considered retreat an option at that point, because the creature TELEPORTED. My experience with Bearded Devils was this monster could follow us wherever.
I dug out a scroll of obscuring mist while the barb got healed. I was advised not to use the scroll when the monster returned a round later. And granted, had the monster been doing sneak attack damage it would have made more sense. Again, we didn't think we could just run away and SWIM back the way we came unmolested.
The monster ported back to a place that kind of cut off our retreat had we made one. The barb armed himself with the CI weapon and ended the battle. Had the monster brought back a friend or the BBEG made a move (why wouldn't they?), we would have been dead.
The last encounter was trivial compared to this one, despite how beat up we were.
All of this said, I think some issues exist with the darkness mechanic in the game and with the CR of that particular monster. The player's w/o DV felt like they were being slaughtered because they didn't have the foresight to prep for a magical super assassin they didn't even know existed until that adventure. And most, if not all the counters to DV we've used so far could have been dispelled by the monster that can both dispell and drop darkness at will.
That's also the second time in as many sessions a charactet's seemingly harmless RP decisions significantly hurt the party.
I didn't even realize DV was a lvl 2 spell, myself, ratherless that I could buy a potion of it. I intend to pick up something to deal with darkness more effectively at my next level.
So, the DM made the best of a bad situation and I paid some small penance for it after getting poisoned. I lost the PP I gained to restore an ability stat.
That scenario has issues beyond just this encounter. Paizo should really revisit it (and that monster). Perhaps even the light/darkness mechanic in general. It really makes playing a mid to low level character without DV feel like a liability. Too often, the racial choice feels like a life and death decision.
As far as the adventure, even a small written clue about the monster's existence, specifically, would either give someone in-game or meta-game knowledge so they can make some prep. At least then it wouldn't feel so cheap to new people when they walk into inevitable death.