The biggest thing I noticed this year way the lack of being waved forward. We were actually able to slow down a bit at time to give us space from the people in front of use and not be yelled at.
Ya see, I actually got waved through just as many times as years when it was "bad", which was especially frustrating after hearing they weren't doing it this year. It actually ruined Monsters for me. I go with older folks who can't walk fast and if the person in front of me takes off in a sprint, I ain't catching up without hurting my party members. And most of the front ops were shouting about keeping up with the party ahead of you, even if the ops in the house weren't doing anything about it.
As for my on topic review: everything seemed like it was a good idea, executed about 60-75%. An overall "mid" year with nothing standing out. For calibration, I've been going since 2008, and 2008-2010 were probably the best cohesive years I've seen, with single houses in every other year I'd put over any single house those years.
These were all done in one night with express.
Dead Man's Pier was great, felt all the atmosphere, made the house for me, but then they only did a little bit with it. Put this plus a Saws and Steam together and you'd make a great Bioshock house. 8/10.
Bugs was another one that I enjoyed the idea, but felt it could've just gone more. More bugs, more puppets, more victims. 7/10.
Halloween was my party's favorite. They don't compare year to year, so to them, this was just as enjoyable to the previous one. But this is my review, so I get to say it was good, but not as good as the original version. 7/10.
The Weeknd: another house I enjoyed what they were going for, but think we got a bad run, as the scares just kept missing. The energy from the music helped a lot. 6/10.
I was pleasantly surprised by Coven. We must have hit it just right because it seemed like there was plenty going on, and it had an interesting premise. 6/10.
Fiesta was alright. Not what I expected it to be, I wanted more puppets and Chupacabras, but that didn't make the house any less. Sits perfectly average any year to me. 5/10.
Why wasn't Hellblock just an MIB house? Everything looked alien enough, if you had just put the guards in suits, it would've worked. Other than that, not a bad replacement. Again, an average house any year. 5/10
I'm going to be honest, grading Monsters fairly, it would be a 6 or 7. The detail was great, there were plenty of people jumping around and I enjoyed the story. My experience in the house dropped it a few points. There's no reason to rush people along if they never stop moving. 5/10.
Blumhouse was Blumhouse. I wouldn't miss it, but it was pretty good for what it was trying to do. The second facade seemed to take me out of it. 4/10.
Descendants was like Havoc to me. High energy, but feels like it's a simple plot to just throw things into a house. Not bad, not memorable. 4/10.
We didn't see the show and were done by about 11 with a couple of short breaks, before calling it a night.
My party also did Sea World HOS and a local haunt the week I was around, and we may have gotten lucky, but we got a lot more out of those tickets for a lot less money. There's a saying being thrown around in another Fandom I'm a part of: "this product isn't for you". With the cost of HHN for what we saw and how crowds and ops were being run that night, for my party, the product may not be for us anymore.