It's easy to get bad impressions of games I think. I thought AFM and MM were dull games until I learned them and played them enough to learn good strategies for them.

I think MM is a little over-hyped. They have similar strategies in stacking multiballs with gates/saucers, but I like the way total annihilation works more than royal madness; can't really lose out like you can on MM with a bad bounce into the madness hole before all the madnesses are lit. And the addition of the martian multiball provides more stackability and lets you save the 3-lock multiballs. Maybe those things make it easier, but it's more fun to play since it gives you more options.

I've had trouble understanding the appeal of TAF, mostly because I haven't played it much. The thing that turns me off of it though is that when I have played it, I feel like I'm working with half a playfield. It just feels really cramped to me, like everything is in the upper right corner, and just doesn't feel fun to play.

I've always liked CV and have played a fair amount of it. It never feels very difficult to wizard and beat, but I'm still figuring out the best way to get really good scores on it. I can have what I feel like is a great game and end with a meh score. The fact that you can almost stack everything with everything else opens up a lot of options.