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Player A: "At least you never have to play that scenario again."
Player B: "Thank God."

That was the reaction of two of my players today and sums up the overall feeling at the end of the scenario.

The setting is vibrant and full of imagery and the basic ideas behind the clocktower and portals are fun and exciting.

The puzzle sapped all the fun out of the adventure. The handout is poor. The clues are poor. The solution is poor. The players did eventually get the solution after receiving all the clues, but by that time the fun was gone. Multiple players had effectively given up at that point and just wanted the scenario to be over - so the diplomacy at the end never really got going.

One of the possible BBEGs is an archer in close quarters using swift action bane on a weapon. Bane + 3 attacks = Character killed in one round, then surrounded and stomped because there's nowhere to go. That is not a fun final combat for anyone. The other combats in the scenario (low tier) posed no threat at all and were wiped out almost instantly.

The scenario gets a second star for the setting being interesting and vibrant and I liked some of the NPCs. The combats were blah and the puzzle is unfortunate.

If you don't like this cover, that's a "you" problem.

There's a healthy amount of roleplay in the beginning. There's variable foes to fight. There's bits to figure out and puzzle over. What's not to love? An excellent replayable scenario.

If your enjoyment of an adventure is based on how many times per hour you get to power attack, look elsewhere.

Now that we have that out of the way, this has got puzzles, investigations, clues, plenty of opportunity for inter-party roleplay, time management, lots of fun, and does it all in a few hours.