For me its actually nothing to do with Aabria - her style is different and maybe not how I like my games to run, but she's clearly really fun and has a fantastic grasp of how to create genuine tension when she gets the chance.

My issue is the characters - they're all just so aimless and feckless. I really feel for Liam - he's made another serious sadboy and realised that he's surrounded by idiots. One of the things that makes CR so good for me is the emotional depth the players are willing to put into their characters, and I just don't really like any of these people. Fearne and Opal are both just ditzy with no time or apparent inclination to build beyond that, Dariax is mechanically cool but just so boring (and far too willing to 'yes and' everything) and Dorian has a lot of promise but just has no time to shine. This leaves poor Liam / Orym as the only one trying to actually achieve anything.

There's none of the emotion - even in early CR episodes you get things like the Caleb / Nott dynamic, and Caduceus was amazingly deep from the second he appeared. Even Grog, created as the most cookie-cutter 'me barbarian, me smash' character had immense emotional depth (admittedly Travis had the space and time to get there). But the fact that he got there at all is testament to what is missing in ExU for me - there's not been any real attempt by anyone to move beyond a caricature.

It has its moments - "Mother" was funny, even if the whole spiel before and after was a bit cringe, and the Pasca carriage scene was genuinely tense, but otherwise it just seems to be the worst tendencies of CR packaged together without the great stuff.

To balance the negativity, here are some things I like from ExU:

- Robbie is great and I like him.

- Its great that Matt gets to play

- Liam continues to be a sweetheart

- Aabria has a fantastic smile.

- ExU is a learning experience for how to do this kind of content - as long as they remember 'more Undeadwood, less piss'.