Already owning the 70425-1: Newbury Haunted High School and 10228-1: Haunted House I really looked forward to this set. I saw it 20% discounted from RRP and bought it.

The build itself is OK. There are two sheets of stickers (great quality, especially the windows) but they aren't difficult to apply and I didn't find them bothersome. The build is fairly fast (3 hours) with a fair mix of large and small parts. The brick quality of my set was not great, a lot of scratches and scuffs, especially on the large parts such as the glass dome. Annoying but easily replaced through the Lego website.

Sadly, the finished build looks "meh" to me. I get the impression the designers didn't get enough budget to properly finish this set. The rooms are pretty much empty, especially compared to the high school. This is great for playability, you actually have room to place your characters. On the other hand, it feels like potential is wasted and some areas are really just left unfinished (e.g. the tower room). Furthermore, the scale seems a bit off, for example, the castle walls are too low, covering the minifigs feet instead of protecting the upper body. Provided you have the right bricks lying around, you can easily resolve all this yourself but of course you shouldn't have to.

The play features of the set are quite limited. There are no transformation options, which I honestly don't mind, but other than a trap-door, nothing is offered. Combined with the empty rooms, it just feels...empty and a bit dull.

The minifigs are nice, especially the evil wizard looks great. However, he also is another example of how unfinished this set is. He doesn't have something on his head (which is fine) but also the back of his armour is left empty, leaving to points exposed where you would typically expect to connect something like wings. Combined, this fig feels unfinished.

All in all, I'm disappointed with this set and probably going to sell it and search for that other scary castle, 9468 Vampyre Castle.