Winter's Flame is a cute scenario, perfect for a holiday game in the Northern Hemisphere, or a Christmas-in-July game down under. It has a beautiful ending that, when lovingly described, leaves players gushing over it every time.

A note to DMs: I've run this a few times, and the main challenge is building tension whilst letting players have fun at the games. I found that getting each player to have a shot at a game before they discover something that brings up the tension a bit is a good way to time it. Having said that, you know your players and if they need more drama to stay invested I'd wind up the games quickly.

Pros:

1. Contains one of the two cutest creatures I've ever seen in D&D.
2. Decently short way to get to 5th level, at about 12-14 hours of runtime on average.
3. All the intelligent monstrous enemies have names, and the names are beautiful.
4. Has well-connected parts, which have clear completion requirements.

Cons:

1. The end of the scenario is quite weak, probably due to it being a lead-in to the rest of the hardcover. For AL scenario players moving on to other seasons and such, a little extra work on an ending will not go astray.
2. The people in this are all named and have professions and familial backstories listed. Not only is this strictly unnecessary for the vast majority of them, but it also takes up an annoying amount of page space, making it more difficult to run.
3. Most combats and rewards available in this scenario rely on the PCs being terrible people, robbing and murdering at every opportunity. This is not ideal behaviour and really punishes decent characters. I imagine there is a party out there that could do this and get most rewards, but it is not a party of people I know.

Pros:

1. The scenario is quite flavourful, and best presented directly after Mayhem in the Earthspur Mines.
2. It really develops on the Mulmaster Cloaks and their relationships with other local powers, expanding on the other factions vying for their slice of authority on the Moonsea.

Cons:

1. The DM really needs to be on the ball to keep up the pace, otherwise it can become quite monotonous.
2. The overall scenario doesn't quite manage to represent the core tension of the elemental cults, and the final encounter doesn't depict the flavour of the featured cult particularly well.

Pros:

1. Part one is essentially an excellently written story hook for part two.
2. Part two is flavourful and just scary enough - there are also several ways of going about this that make the scenario decently replayable.

Cons:

1. The actual beginning adventure hooks need a bit of creative license to make them work for the more considered and cautious adventurers, though doing so can pay off later.
2. The boss is fleetingly scary, though is intelligent, has minions, and can become actually scary if the party manages to back themselves into a corner in the mines. To avoid disastrous circumstances, it may be wise to drop hints about the number of exits to a room, and so on.

Pros:

1. The second half of the scenario offers some great opportunities for PCs to use strategy and wits to make fights easier.
2. Relevantly 3D combat environments are both a rarity, and well done here.
3. Allows for engagement with some Faerûn lore about dwarves and the God Moradin.

Cons:

1. The start of the scenario is very railroaded and it's important to make it obvious to the PCs that if they stay they'll be overwhelmed.
2. Many varieties of enemy in the same fight made running a chore for one combat, especially if a few of your NPCs are fighting with the players and have 3 different stat blocks, while the enemies also have 3 different stat blocks in the fight.

I generally liked the story and 'visual' elements, but it falls down in even giving the illusion of choice or decent roleplay opportunities to players.

Pros:

1. Well timed, easily able to stick to 2 hours across several runs.
2. Pretty and flavourful environment to describe.
3. Alright for new DMs due to the utter lack of moving parts.
4. DMs have a chance to work in character backstory.
5. Boat combat at the beginning is very "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Cons:

1. A little boring, essentially a dungeon crawl with no puzzles.
2. Severely restricts the choices, solutions, and tactics the party can take.

I love this one. It's essentially a dungeon crawl backwards through a subterranean digestive system, and you end up in the "brain" of the earthly cyst, with a strange artefact.

Pros:

1. The idea of crawling through a digestive system eventually dawns on the players and it's reminiscent of "the Magic Schoolbus" from that point onwards.
2. Has a near-perfect mix of puzzles, challenges, and combat.

Cons:

1. Very little social/roleplay action, if you're after that.
2. Really punishes parties without healing.

Pros:

1. Great start/setup! :O
2. Obvious opportunities for roleplay and rewarding PC ingenuity.
3. Lots of options for the DM to prepare/pursue to change the scenario for those playing it again.

Cons:

1. Can get very long and combat heavy, especially during the overnight period. The simple way to counter this is to choose one good encounter (my favourite is the flameskull), and see how they do with that. For the flameskull, they might not make the check to realise that it may regenerate without intervention, and attack them later as they sleep, producing a second encounter.
2. Requires a fair amount of prep to pull off well.

Pros:

1. Even with a full table each part should easily be finished within 2 hours.
2. Thematic, with decent humour, bountiful flavour and continuing concepts introduced.
3. All of them play into future adventure plot points released in Storm King's Thunder.
4. All of them are self-contained, and are just as enjoyable individually as together.
5. Perfect for new DMs, as they require little prep and are incredibly short on paper.
6. Punishes players for being shitty/murder hobos, but not too much for a low-level adventure.

Cons:

1. A little on the deadly side for adventures used to introduce new players to the system, requires some care.
2. Some of the adventures are clearly longer than others, as a warning to anyone running several simultaneously.

Flames of Kythorn is a great story and has a lot of potential as an adventure, but falls down in places in terms of execution.

Pros: the opening is strong, painting a vivid scene through which to draw the players in; most of the places in the investigative section, and the NPCs, are interesting and unique; and the ending is one of the more memorable scenes I've encountered in a D&D adventure.

Neutral: the ending combat was a hard fight for our group when we played it. This was definitely at least in part due to party composition and bad luck, but there's a definite chance of PC death thanks to the enemies' special abilities, as well as not having the chance to take a rest between it and the penultimate combat. YMMV on whether your group enjoys combat challenges or not (ours did, which was nice).

Cons: firstly, it can be a bit of an issue at the start to get all the PCs to be where they need to be when they need to be there, depending on how they function in social situations. This one can definitely be bypassed by DM creativity, but it's a little inconvenient.

Worse is the problem with the investigative section, which suffers from offering essentially the same location in each locale, while simultaneously feeling different enough that players feel compelled to look into each location - it ends up feeling more like a grind towards 100% completion than an actual investigation.

Lastly, a formatting issue - it's really easy to miss how many cultists are meant to be in the penultimate fight (it's three before adjustment). Not impossible to find, the information is there, but not near any of the other statistics for the fights, which is just a pain for the DM.

Flames isn't a bad adventure - I enjoyed playing it - but it's definitely not perfect, and benefits from a little DM creativity to make sure that the middle doesn't get boring and what problems it does have get dealt with smoothly.

There are a lot of good things to say about this game; it's creative, well-written, and has more than enough information included for the DM to make it an engaging and enjoyable time for their players.

Highlights are definitely the investigative phase near the beginning, which includes encounters with some very interesting NPCs and at least two cool places to explore, and the final combat, which is thematically very strong and has some very interesting interactions between the environment and the enemies. If things play out right, there are even some unique mechanics that can really add to the players' experience.

A word of caution, though: this expedition does suffer if the DM hasn't had much prep time, particularly that final combat. DMs, you won't regret making sure to read over the end, and taking some time to think over the map and mechanics - it'll make your life a lot easier.

Overall, the writing is very cinematic, which I personally enjoyed and felt added a lot to my experience when I was playing it. Flavour hooks are explicitly included to help the DM bring the city of Mulmaster to life, which also helps, and the inclusion of several player handouts is a nice touch.

Speaking of handouts, DMs will likely find the clue tree provided extremely helpful in organising what's happening next in what is a rather complex adventure.

Generally, Cloaks and Shadows is an extremely flavourful game, well-written, well-edited, and well thought out. I found some minor issues in the middle with plausibility and maintaining interest, and time can be a problem if you're on a strict or limited schedule - it's very easy for the investigative section to balloon, but other than that, it's a fun time.