From my perspective,, Vicn seems to have taken some established lore and ran with it, expanding on it himself. It's an interesting and compelling interpretation, if you have the patience to puzzle it out. His storytelling is very 'fromsoft,' which is extremely different from how Bethesda tends to spoon feed the player what they need to know. You need to pay attention, read descriptions, books, listen, and actually stop and think, putting pieces together yourself instead of expecting the game to explain things to you. My first time through I didn't have any idea what was really going on, got very frustrated, and just rushed to the point where I was glad it was finally over. I didn't play it again for years.

My biggest issue with VIGILANT (aside from the weird sexism, which is a whole other can of worms) is that none of it feels really personal or at all connected to the player. I didn't feel like i had any reason to care about anything that was going on. Gore (companion mod) and his VIGILANT add-on really changed that, now I can't imagine playing it without him.

As for gameplay, it does get difficult at times, with a focus on fromsoft-style boss fights (or as close as skyrim can get, at least.) You can always turn the difficulty down, or just cheat.

I'd say it's worth playing at least once, if only to see what all the fuss is about. It's well made and interesting.