A Classic Roleplaying Game Sent to its Bedroom: Mixed Blessings
The guys who made this game did not do their best, but it plays like Broadway Shakespeare as performed by drunks. The Temple of Elemental Evil was a game module for AD&D first edition, and to be complete should include the module Village of Hommlet, which this rendition does include.
Regrettably, aside from some misplaced humour, the game falls short of all it could be. The guys in Troika locate incredible music and arrange dramatic lighting but aren't so very good with dialogue and adventure, and stink at gameplay variety. As I have stated elsewhere, Troika seems to have three writers, a South Park style humourist, a scholarly poetic type, and a guy that wants to script fighting without much relevance. The combination falls flat, because they do not seem to work at the same high level.
It is sad that Troika is considered to be an excellent game developer by afficianado of Fallout, Baldur's Gate, and other games by the triumviate of Bioware, Black Isle, and Troika. It is equally sad that people scoff this game due to claims that it lacks where it actually excels. It excels as a game to tide oneself over til a smart D&D computer game of genuine and honest quality is designed, presuming one is fond of D&D to begin with, which I am.
I particularly rue the lack of village politics that was reduced to romantic squabbles and small silliness that never truly arises into interest, but it is obviously an assumption that permitting players to focus on social issues as a centerfuge of gameplay, avoiding battle for hours of gameplay, would be to the detriment of the game entire, an entire falsity and foolish as an approach with the depth of the game material drawn from.
If there were a different team working with the same game, well educated and interested in actually designing a good and deep game of D&D as played within Village of Hommlet and Temple of Elemental Evil, I'm sure they might have a better game on their hands and so would we.
As is, what we find are haphazzard game elements that seem consumed with foolery and folly, very drunken, and not quite ready to play in a serious, commercial venue.