That layout doesn't make sense to me. Storm ramp, Rogue loop, Xavier lane. Target. Back to back to back to back. All of them in a space about three inches and all of them feed SDTM, at least on the one I played. Wolverine's left arm played a lot into that, plus it blocks the Xavier lane at times, too.

It'll kick your ass all day long. Hence the problem. People generally don't like getting their ass kicked. So they bag the game.

It looks and plays cluttered. In a way, it sort of makes me appreciate the widebody games. They can have more unique layouts without sacrificing playability.

A little bit, yeah. I think what helps is having the bash toy further up the playfield, and that the side ramp isn't nearly as steep or perpendicular. The Thing and Bear Kick Ramps are fairly normal-sized, though, whereas it looks like half an inch was taken out of the respective Xavier and Magneto shots and given to the Cyclops shot. There's tight, and there's too tight. I think the shots on Spider-Man are good, while TRON is a bit tight (especially Quorra and GEM), and the shots on X-Men are too tight.

I don't think the problem with The Addams Family being easy is with the layout as much as the rules and the modes themselves. This was a time when modes were evolving from being instant awards and playfield bonuses (pops at max, million shots) like on Whirlwind and Funhouse to mini-games. 3 of the 12 modes on TAF are just instant points awards, no work required. One is a playfield bonus, which would probably just be a random award at the swamp or something similar. Then there's Thing MB, Quick MB and EBL, which are all one shot each. That's over half the game in just three shots. The rest of the modes have the same problem that many (most?) mode-based games of the time have: you just have to start them to get credit for them for the wizard mode. You can time them out, or bring them into a multiball and ignore them for the most part. I was able to Tour the Mansion when I played it last, even though I hadn't seen one in almost 10 years, just going mode-ramp-mode-ramp over and over. That's why I like objective-based games like Scared Stiff and Attack from Mars. You aren't hitting the same few shots over and over. You have to hit the standups (Martian Multiball), lanes (Deadheads), pop bumpers (Lab, Super Jets) and everything else to get to the wizard mode.

Modern mode games are much better (IMO) because they make you win all the modes to get to the final wizard, but they also give you something decent if you just start them all. TRON is my favorite modern game, and I have gotten to Sea of Simulation a handful of times. Getting Portal is something else, however. GEM is the sticking point in both cases.