Risingson: This is a very bad game, one of the worse in the history of Sierra, maybe the worse of Roberta Williams' career, and whose only redeeming quality is the nice gore feast at the end of it. Gabriel Knight 2 and Puzzle of Flesh surpassed it in everything (and I am not talking about the technical qualities, but the trite story, the flawed horror elements, the non-existent characters, the stupid puzzles, the horrid game engine and that rape scene that is one of the most embarassing things ever happened in a videogame).
And, all in all, it is interesting. You can play it now and wonder why magazines talked so well about it and not about many other adventures. You can see how Sierra tried to get into the FMV wagon and miss in the first try. Anyway, saying that this is a love-and-hate thing is just absurd: this is a piece of explotation more than a videogame, and that was clear since the day it was out. Anyway, enjoy it.
I think this game generates such extreme opinions because at the time Roberta Williams was at the height of rockstar fandom, she was a workshipped celebrity of adventure gaming, and the genre itself was at its peak. Everyone wanted to know more about Roberta Williams' new game. I think too, that this game was some sort of star vehicle for Roberta Williams, and it wasn't very good of a game at the end, and so it comes off as arrogant.