I checked out TWD at Sunray today, and I'm impressed with it so far. Here are my thoughts from about 30 minutes worth of play so far:
Artwork/Lighting/Sound:
As others have noted, the playfield art is very well done, and the fine detail on the well walker and prison is noticeable and adds to the overall polished look of the game. The AMC logo on the backglass is oddly placed, I admit, but it's understandable. The lighting is also well done, and the colors of the insert lighting fit nicely with the overall color palette. Visibility on this machine was excellent, and I was able to see the ball at all times. There were no glaring blind or dark spots that I noticed. Music was fitting to the theme, and was not annoying. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for the voiceovers. I'm not a fan of the show, and I've seen maybe ten minutes of it in my life, but the callouts did not fit the theme, and it was glaringly obvious. I hope Stern will address that in future code, since the incongruity between the voiceover clips and the rest of the package was jarring.
Gameplay/Mechanics:
As others have noted, the skill shot was a unique feature, and it was nice to see something different from the standard rollover mechanic. Point ranges if I recall correctly on the shot were a minimum of 500,000 points, but I was also seeing skill shots in the 1.5 million range, which added a bit of a challenge worth shooting for. I agree with the sentiment of some about the amount of time the ball lingered in the pop bumpers, which I wasn't thrilled with. The feed out of the bumpers was usually safe, but you need to be prepared for some dribbles out of the area to prevent center drains (this was frustrating, especially if the ball save timed out while the ball smacked around in the pops). I was a bit confused on the overall rules at first, and other than the obvious shots (the prison and well walker), the mode start shots weren't readily apparent, although I did figure out the sequence after a couple of games. The well walker shot is a relatively safe shot from the right flipper, and I did notice a bit of inconsistency registering hits to the walker toy (perhaps one of every ten shots to the toy seemed to not register - nothing too annoying to me, but it could be so for some people). The well walker multiball, for the amount of bashes to the toy seemed to lack a certain amount of payoff, but it seems as a step up shot to the much more risky (but much more lucrative) prison multiball. One approach which I used for a respectable score was to beat on the well walker using the safe return on the right hand side, and then using the walker multiball to start the prison multiball. Combined with riot mode, the points racked up fairly quickly using this method. In regards to other features, the woodbury shot was an interesting idea, but it seemed to me like a sucker shot, so I stopped shooting at it. Perhaps someone can provide more insight on this. The right ramp is a very tight shot, and I noted that some of the more lucrative modes were on that ramp (and rightfully so, I think). Left ramp is an easy shot and easily repeatable, but the emphasis on combos helps to prevent a one shot wonder game, it seems, so I think they thought of that potential. At this point, I enjoyed the game quite a bit and will play it some more to form a better impression of it, but in general I am impressed with it!