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[bleedingedge]

Having played H1 & H2, and just finished the prep for H3 (and having skimmed P1), all of the modules in this series are giving out anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 of the treasure (both cash and magic) recommended by the DMG. I find it extremely disappointing that the modules drift so far from WotC's own rules for treasure generation. Sure you can fix it yourself but the point of spending money on a module is so that you don't have to spend your time doing those sorts of things.

The boss fights in H1 and H2 are also setup to have a very high chance of TPK if run to maximum efficiency by the GM. Especially H1 as at such low levels you don't have enough ways to trigger healing surges, and can get into situations where the party has plenty of surges left but no way to trigger them. At least in H2 the party has the potential to be able to use all of the surges they have (whether it's enough or not is another matter). Obviously class mix does come into play here but I think the average iconic party would get stomped by these encounters w/o the GM holding back.

Because of these two items I would say that the modules are extremely poorly balanced. This doesn't make them not worth running, it just means that as a DM you need to be aware of it and perform the appropriate modification(s).

The series also has some continuity holes; at the end of H1 the town is claiming they have no cash to pay the party (given what has happened there it shouldn't) yet one of the hooks in H2 is the town offering you 1000gp to go off and do something. Where did this 1000gp that they didn't have a day or two ago come from??? There are other such gaffes which are mildly annoying.

That said the setting of H2 is neat and certainly has a lot of hooks for other adventures. I was disappointed on reading through H3 to that rather than expanding on the region around the seven pillared hall it takes you to a new area entirely. So it looks like if you run the series all of those cool plot hooks in H2 are going to be abandoned.