Gameplay:

On my first attempt of this mission I looted a wall showcase which then alerted the KO-proof captain of the guard who apparently raised alert levels? of those around him, causing everyone to freak out from the smallest sound 100 yards away. This mechanic (that you are given no warning of) would by itself ruin an ironman run, even by quickloading 30 or so times I was unable to get out of it and had to reload from an earlier hard save and quit playing for the day out of sheer frustration.

Behind almost every locked door there is a readable (most of the time a useless one), not only is this extremely predictable it becomes downright annoying. For example, when you loot a map of the mansion, there's a five page readable right next to it describing the exact same visual information you just looted.

The city portion contains a puzzle that doesn't follow it's own logic causing immense frustration for the player. I had to consult the TTLG thread after having to resort to brute forcing numbers.
[edit: this was false, I somehow missed the last barrel despite scouring the rooftops like 5 times during my actual playthrough]

It's very possible for the player to miss the rope arrow which makes later portions of the fm even more annoying.


Brushwork:

Passable but not exciting, the city streets are flat with very little verticality. This mission would've worked better First City Bank and Trust style without a tacked on city section.


Lighting:

Awful distribution of light levels in many places, the highlights are bright but cast almost no visual light, the blacks/mids are a black mess. This mission uses (for whatever reason) lm32_params meant for relit 16 bit maps causing the lights to further crunch towards the light source. This mission looks underlit nearly everywhere.

In tighter areas with sufficient lighting there are weird choices like yellow lights onto yellow walls causing oversaturation, it looks like stock light parameters were used with no thoughts given.


For the most part this fm pissed me off too much to be an actually enjoyable experience. The bad bits ruined the good.

I guess if you are generally fault-finding and overly critical as a person, then very few fan missions will be satisfying to your standards. I have enjoyed playing this mission even during the beta phase. There are a couple of things I liked less, but for me it's a solid 8/10, especially since this is the author's debut.

Hmmm, that's interesting what you say about the captain. I know I was having an issue with him in the parlor with historical items. He kept seeing someone I knocked out, that I place up in the rafters. Not even in the parlor, it was in the next room and he could somehow see him up and around corners. I had to lower the knocked out guy to the floor to stop the captain from screaming murder. He's either got some super sensitivity or there is a leak in the terrain there.

That said, this mission was very very fun avoiding knock outs when possible. Gave it an 9.