We played through it a few years ago. I made the mistake of wearing the mask on my first character. My second character lasted until Egypt. She died because for some reason the other PCs thought it was a good idea to fight shotgun-wielding cultists. After I got shot, they continued fighting like it was D&D while I bled out. The third character made it all the way until the end, though we tried for a stupid TPK after we beat the bad guy.
That last fight was dumb. We’d stopped the ritual, but we decided to go back to Kenya to finish some business. We ended up in a big fight on top of the mountain there with a terribly executed plan where people fought like it was D&D. Just stood there and didn’t even take cover. I don’t think the GM expected us to be that stupid because once it started looking grim, he was like, “Guys,” and we agreed to flash forward to an epilogue.
Overall, I had fun. There are some weaknesses in the structure, and it helps to understand there’s an expected play loop (arrive in a location, visit newspapers, follow leads). I didn’t like when a certain NPC showed up out of nowhere with a plan to fight the cultists. What even was the point of looking for him if he’s scripted to show up regardless?
I’m a bit surprised by the talk of combat. We barely had any. There was a fight against zombies in NY, that pointless fight in Egypt, an island with cultists in Shanghai, the final confrontation, and the pointless fight in Kenya. I remember dealing with cultist stuff in Kenya on the way to the mountain, but I can’t recall whether we actually fought or just sabotaged things. In general, we tried to avoid things or GTFO when things started looking bad.