I played this for the first time today, and didn't enjoy it. I got bad terrain card draws, with nearly half of my draws the same type, and mostly at the start of the game. Once I drew other terrains, I had already filled up the first terrain block, so I had to place adjacent to them and still couldn't escape the single settlement of doom.
By the time all the special tiles were taken, other players had 4-5 while I was stuck on 1. It was a horrible, slogging experience where I barely made any relevant decisions.
Sure, I guess it's just bad luck, and doesn't happen often. But still, just for the game to have the chance of that happening severely undermines my interest in playing it again.