I can't believe people are complaining about the park being themed into one big cohesive Scarezone surrounding one property... If that's not cohesion and amazing storytelling... I don't know what it. Especially on Universal's budget?
You may hate the property... I don't feel any kind of way about it. The house may have sucked last year, but Universal is definitely the "gets it right on the second try" type of park and they sincerely care about everything they do.
Having one property for scarezones may be a tad bit disappointing... But atleast they are trying to innovate... A themeing the whole park under one idea might just be freakin' spectacular... And Universal is definitely one of the few people I can see pulling it off.
They've had the park themed to one big cohesive scarezone before (Midway of the Bizarre in 2007) and it was pretty much panned by everyone. That at least fit in with the rest of the storytelling of the event though. The Walking Dead has very little to do with the "storyline" that we currently have about the event. Obviously, that can change and opinions may change a little then, but I can't say that I would call it "amazing storytelling" yet.
I don't personally hate the property. I've only seen one episode of it and never ended up following the show, but I admittedly enjoyed that episode and have nothing against the franchise. However, I have a hard time being interested in having any franchise being the sole scarezone of the event. Even if they took my favorite horror franchise and did the same thing, I'd be highly skeptical. The scarezone last year was very disappointing and it's hard to get excited when that was the precursor of what's to come in this year's streets. It's also a bit disappointing to many that the franchise is such a large part of this year's event especially after being featured last year. When we thought we were just getting one house based on the franchise, the reaction was pretty lackluster for a lot of folks because repeats aren't the most exciting thing in the world. For it to now be 1/8 of the houses and all of the scarezones can be a bit underwhelming IMO.
I have a lot of faith in A&D and believe that they can possibly surprise me with the streets, but I don't think it's unfair for people to be skeptical about this information. I know I'll personally be out there with a FFP and I'll enjoy the hell out of the event, but it doesn't mean that I can't be a bit disappointed by the announcements of certain things.