In Heisel: Forgotten Legacy, the players explore a mining town in the crater of a mountain, where not everyone is who they seem to be. The player characters get to partake in a local festival, go down a mine (dungeon) and slay a dragon. I purchased the printed version of the book, having read through its entirety but not got a chance to play it with a group yet.

Good

The aesthetic - I was ordering some print on demand books on DM's guild and came across this title. The cover of the book captivates me. The book itself look amazing. There is some lovely artwork at the header and footer of the pages, and the layout of the pages look pleasing to the eyes. The maps are also well drawn. I have a minor complain about the character portraits, which I will come back to later.

A detailed town - Heisel itself is a very detailed town populated with interesting characters. I guess it would also be useful to DMs who likes to borrow bits and pieces from modules and fit them into their own campaign (which I am not).

Festival activities - I love reading about the festival activities. They are imaginative and provides good role play opportunities for the players.

A good dungeon - The adventure involves a mine filled with monster, which is a nice multi-level dungeon that leads to the lair of a dragon.

Stat blocks - I love having the stat blocks in the adventure book so that I don't have to flip through the Monster Manual very time.

Neutral

Character portraits - Personally, I don't particularly like the character portraits. They are not bad per se but they feel more at home in a card game like Ascension than in Dungeons and Dragons. It is my personal opinion and your mileage may vary.

Pacing - There is a semi-optional encounter with some goblins at the beginning of the adventure, but otherwise it is heavily role play focused until the end, which is a multi level dungeon that is focused on hack and slashed. I wish there is a better mix of role play and combat throughout the game, but it is a common problem with adventure modules, perhaps inherent with the design of D&D.

Bad

Linear story - I feel that the story is a bit too linear. The players arrive town, attend the festival, witness a dragon attack and go into the mines to find its lair. There are interesting information that can be learned from the NPCs in town but there is nothing the players can do with them. They can not prevent the dragon attack and the death of the Lord Heisel, nor can they change the course of the story. Also, the writing assumes the players will want to stay and do something else than following the quest, but there's nothing else for them to do in a small town with overpriced shops.

Unfinished story - While it is a complete adventure, the story itself is not complete and the author wrote that she is going to release a sequel. I wish there is some indication on the product’s page that this is just part one of a bigger adventure.

Note: I deleted the review and re-submitted it because all my line breaks were messed up. I wish the DM's Guild review editor is more user friendly.