I've played this game three times, and never finished it due to lack of time.
I want to play it more, MORE! I enjoy it thoroughly.
However, as I fiddle with all the . . . fiddly bits -- the cards, the clue tokens, the health and sanity tokens, yada yada, I couldn't help but think that they were parts for the sake of making parts.
Nineteen decks of cards?!? Really. I brought up my objection (and fix) for this abomination of bookkeeping to some local gamers, but it was rightly pointed out to me that it was purely a business-based design decision: if they choose to produce expansions, they just generate additional decks of cards, or additional cards for particular decks.
That's great, but in the meantime, I'm stuck having to reshuffle decks every time I draw a card, sorting cards when I take them out or put them away.
The better way to design this game would have been in booklets. Remember those old paragraph-style games, like Tales of the Arabian Nights and City of Chaos? THAT'S how this should have been designed. The cards are entirely text-based, unlike the unique card art on CCG cards. No "art" would have been lost with this design decision. We could use standard dice, or Chaosium could have commissioned special dice that players rolled to determine which numbered paragraph of the book to go to. If they had to have art, the book could be done in color.
Expansions? Make the booklets loose-leaf, and just publish additional pages. Or issue booklet updates. After all, future expansions will likely include new boards and new cards -- more stuff to track! Yuk.
Remember, I enjoy the game -- I just don't like this particular design decision. I'm not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. I still plan to purchase expansions.
I'm just disappointed that there aren't more paragraph games on the market, especially when games such as Arkham Horror seem ideally suited to them.
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I like the paired skill mechanic (Just like its nice in Pendragon), but part of your summary made me confused. In teh skill mecahnics section you talk about trying to roll dice above your skill value, which implies that a low skill is better. but in movement you move equal to your speed skill, which would imply that a high speed is better. So if I throw my speed/sneak slider all the way to the end (max speed, min sneak) don't I get the best of both worlds?
This is going to be a litty rant-y ... but what I really disliked about the game were the curses. There are various events at locations that can curse you. When this happens, you need a 6 to succeed on a skill check instead of a 5 or 6. This makes accomplishing virtually anything in the game exceptionally difficult.
If I recall, the only way to get rid of a curse is to roll a 6 during the upkeep phase, or to bring trophies to one of the buildings. But to get trophies requires succeeding at modestly difficult skill checks, which, as I say, seemed almost impossible while cursed, and trophies can't be traded between investigators, so your fellow-players can't even bail you out.
So I was wandering around, unable to do anything, for like half an hour waiting to roll a '6' so I could participate in the game again. This was frustrating, annoying, and dumb. I play these games so I can do stuff, not sit around waiting to roll a 6. Even in Monopoly, when you get stuck in Jail, you can try to roll the number or decide to pay a fine, and they let you out after a fixed, small number of turns.
My other complaint was that the game was way too easy on the investigators with more players. But it looks like the FAQ has tried to address this by bringing out more monsters with larger groups.
The better way to design this game would have been in booklets.
THat's how the original game was designed. FFG decided to move away from that quite early in the development process. I'm sure expandability, as you mention, was one issue.
Personally, having used both, I prefer the cards to a book quite a bit. I was predisposed not to like the piles of cards due to complaints I'd heard from others, but I never found them to be a problem. Contrariwise, passing around a booklet was always cumbersome.
I like the paired skill mechanic (Just like its nice in Pendragon), but part of your summary made me confused. In teh skill mecahnics section you talk about trying to roll dice above your skill value, which implies that a low skill is better. but in movement you move equal to your speed skill, which would imply that a high speed is better. So if I throw my speed/sneak slider all the way to the end (max speed, min sneak) don't I get the best of both worlds?
Your skill is the number of dice you roll. Every "5" or "6" that's rolled is a success. High skill is definitely better, since every 3 points of skill effectively adds a success.
My other complaint was that the game was way too easy on the investigators with more players. But it looks like the FAQ has tried to address this by bringing out more monsters with larger groups.
I did think the game was a little easy, particularly compared to the previous version. The errata/FAQ addresses some of this, but I'd still suspect success is a lot more common than failure.
Nonetheless both games it felt like we barely made it.
We've played it several times and never even got close to winning, mostly because of bad luck on die rolls, whereas, with the old edition, we won almost every time.
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Thanks for another great review, Shannon. I really enjoyed the photos, as always.
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I've played the game a couple of times - it actually seems fairly balanced. We played with the maximum number of people and with a smaller group, and I have to say the game shines with more players - they are often forced to interact more and things tend to power along.
Remember that with more players, more monsters start appearing - this is a big thing.
Curses *are* annoying, but it's a co-operative game. The point is if one player gets cursed, a smart group will then share out the load to get that curse lifted quickly - or things can end up going to hell in a hand basket before you know what is happening.
As for the cards - I love them. I don't quite understand the complaint of shuffling them every time you draw a card. We don't do that, you just place the discarded card at the bottom of the deck. Overall, a much more elegant system than a book.
A truly excellent game!
Conan
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I enjoy it thoroughly. 
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