back when i was playing quake alkaline, i felt the need to pick up something that didn't have hour-plus levels randomly tossed into the middle of it. doom the way id did a doom (1) WAD that aims to create a full WAD of maps in the style of the original doom mappers, with the benefit of modern tools and many years of lessons as to what makes a good and bad doom level. i think that that they largely succeeded in doing this, but there are definitely some parts of this set of maps that i didn't totally enjoy.
the first thing that you'll notice in e1 is that the texturing, enemy selection, and enemy placement are all about what you'd expect, but the secret placement and map construction is far more elaborate. for example, in doom e1m1 you can get outside by pressing a switch, or lowering an obviously mistextured wall. in dtwid e1m1 you have to lower a slightly inset wall, cross a linedef, notice a wall lower in front of a switch, get over there and hit it before the wall raises again, and then go back to the intial wall and move forward as a bridge raises in sections to take you outside. the good news is that this level of detail and complexity is kept up for the whole episode. the bad news is that it's limited to exactly the enemies and weapons that are present in doom e1m1 - zombieman, shotgunner, pinky, specter, imp, barons (3) in e1m8, and mostly the shotgun and chaingun, although there are a few rockets scattered around. this results in the first few levels feeling charming, but by the end of the episode things are getting a little stale.
episodes two and three go off the rails a little bit further (like original doom, now that i think of it). the levels are larger and more complex, but the combat is still relatively limited even with the introduction of the rest of the doom bestiary. expect to shotgun a lot of barons, and in e3m1, pistol a few cacodemons. i think that's one element of the original that could have been left behind. also the omnipresent damaging floor really limits how much time you can spend exploring for secrets, and depending on the level, damaging floors are either places where secrets are hidden - a very romero-esque touch - or inescapable death. there are a few exceptions where the levels will get your blood pumping a bit - e2m8 has an excellent introduction of the cyberdemon, and the second half of e3 manages to be pretty compelling.
finding the secret levels is pretty awful. definitely the worst offender is the exit in e2m5, where you're offered a choice of two doors, and if you go through the left one you're locked out of the secret exit permanently (unless you idclip, or restart the level). i couldn't even tell you how to do the other two secret exits without referring to doomwiki.
oh and the secret level is done up in the style of mount erebus and there is ZERO FIREBLU. for shame.
in the grand tradition of these posts i'm already almost done with the next wad. so hopefully that'll be up sooner rather than later.
and some stats, for the curious:
time played: 7h26m
maps: 27/27
kills: 2636/2639
secrets: 103/145
items: 1377/1513