I ... did not enjoy this as a player.
I played at a local CON with people I know. (and like).
We got (in my opinion) one of the best judges available to run it for us, someone several of us look forward to playing with each CON.
We played early in the CON (2nd slot on Friday) so we were fresh and hungry for a good game.
It started well, with the Investigation only feeling a little contrived ("why is it we, as Pathfinders, are looking into a local religious group? Perhaps there is a tie in later we'll learn..."). I'll give it a bonus star just for the setting and set up...
We had a well balanced team of PCs (Combat, Rogue Skills, Face, Healing, Magic... all covered, often with depth). So it's not that we couldn't handle the challenges presented... I myself, tend to dislike combat heavy scenarios (and my PC for this was a Street Performer Bard with little combat abilities... Long sword for 1d8+0 anyone? and thrown paint brushes for missile weapons? But I OWN social RP encounters, and I do love to talk... yeah, I'm the Face).
But about the middle (perhaps closer to the last quarter maybe?) of the scenario it seemed to reveal itself to be (have been) a Lecture on Philosophy and Religion rather than an Adventure... and not really a well presented lecture. Several of us stated that we felt like we had wondered into a class demonstration (or lecture) on Contemporary Religions ... Lots of "boxed text" read to us by the judge (not his usual style of running, so this must be the scenario - we really felt the story-line tracks on this one).
It is kind of hard to play your PC when the Story Line is lecturing you... even when your PC is very devout in an in-game religion (we had a Paladin, two Clerics, and my Bard with Deific Obedience... that I can remember off the top of my head)... And the Author wants to portray "a different way" - but perhaps I am just not understanding what the Author was trying to say. We did get in some good In-Character conversations - mostly between ourselves (having clerics of Asmodeus and Cayden Cailean, a Paladin and PCs who were very into the world setting was interesting...).
But even as a "Lecture" I think the this one falls short, as mostly we were scratching our heads at the end of the scenario trying to figure out what the heck we were supposed to have learned from it. If that was what it was trying to do...
Over all? Not a lot of fun to me... (though one of the players did say he enjoyed it.)
When it was over? IMHO - Kind of felt like I had just lost 5 hours of gaming... and not really enjoyed it.
