The past 2 days I got a chance to play both TWD premium and GOT premium to compare with my STLE.
I was not hoping to pick winner obviously not possible since pinball is subjective, and of course initial impressions are not the same as owning a pin for a long period of time and of course I don't understand the rules. So this was more of a get to know you visit and to see what the other pins look like and such.
Both appeal to me as themes, I've not seen all the episodes, but plan to watch them as a block once their run is over that's what I did with Breaking Bad.
Looks:
TWD is appropriately dark with very nice PF art dark and brooding, perhaps a tad bit too dark in places, but actually nicely so since it fits the atmosphere of the genre. Like the GI lighting but didn't find the color changing inserts to be as impressive
GOT the actual artwork was better than I'd thought but more functional than spectacular much lie, ST. I'm a sucker for color changing inserts and this has them in spades. The color changing inserts are better done on GOT than TWD much more impressive and the GI is nice on Blackwater MB, but overall the lighting was too brite, burn my cornea brite. I'm not saying ST isn't brite, but GOT is in a whole other galaxy. I'd hope Stern can include and adjustment but not sure. I like to play in the dark or semi-dark so that's likely a source of the problem.
STLE has the best color inserts to date, the PF while not outstanding like Metallica or even TWD, but it's functional on par with GOT.
Rules (dots, call outs, intensity of play)
This is impossible to say since I've played less than 20 games on the new pins but overall probably like TWD rules, dots better found it more intense and pressure packed. I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to do but still was super fun. GOT was good, not incredible yet, there was a lot of houses to play but they kind of feel generic (I have the same complaint about ST) however that's just my superficial impression. I really like the Blackwater MB great light show, probably more fun than any MB on ST (although I've not really played the level 1,2,3 MB on ST yet so just going by the Klingon and Vengeance MB).
Layout
TWD is more interesting more geometry while GOT seems to be straight shooting for the most part. Probably prefer TWD but were aspects that I didn't like such as BG bash target, barn head bash target both were meh. I was not a huge fan of the barn. It's ok but not awe inspiring. Well walker was nice enough but not my favorite shot since you can hit it without any trouble.
GOT is 'shot poor' although I can say that for a lot of pins that I like such as AcDc, ST, IM, Met etc.. Not horrible but less interesting than a pin like Tspp or TWD I like inner loops or sideways loops while this is more or orbits and ramps and the ramps were less inspiring the right ramp feeds the upper PF and the left ramp is kind of hidden while I know it's a ramp it's just not as satisfying as some ramps. The upper PF add some shots, I wasn't totally satisfied with the upper PF as its kind of repetitive (can say the same thing about AcDc or any other mini PF) but I just don't love it to death when I factor in that it takes over a third of the entire game real estate. IMO, I'd rather have a mini like Tspp let me see more of the main PF. But it does look nice and impressive.