I have this new game group I introduced Descent second ed to, so far we only played the intro quest and a quest off of the vault to add further experience to game play. This was all done at our first meeting when I introduced the game. They all liked the game and were very interested in playing a campaign. I, in my excitement and anticipation of playing, went out and bought the big box expansions. I was reluctant to make the investment before since I didn't have a group who was committed to play.

Now, the issue here is I am not really interested in replaying the Shadow Rune. I have played through it once before with my game group in my home town before I moved. I would like to play LoR, but am concerned on how difficult it maybe for new players. Basically, are the new concepts likely to confuse new players? I suspect not since these guys are familiar with RPG and board games.

I am just wondering what others think about the introductory nature of Shadow Rune vs Labyrinth of Ruin as a first campaign for players.

I think it really depends on your gaming group. If they were all new to the genre I would feel more towards playing Shadow Rune or maybe the smaller extensions (Lair of the WYrm, Trollfens, Manor of Madness). If not, then either Labyrinth of Ruin or Shadow of Nerekhall would do fine.

I recently starting playing this with some new people and they were much into this. And so far we are still having a good time with Shadow Rune.

Maybe you could implement the rumor cards as something extra

Depending on quest choices, it can take at least a couple campaigns to play every quest in "The Shadow Rune," and one thing I enjoy in that particular campaign is how much the quest choice alters the list of relics available to the heroes/OL. It's really the only campaign so far that has a good list of "weapon" relics.

Labyrinth of Ruin (and even Nerekhall) are not that complicated to play, especially if your group has experience gaming. I took a few first time Descent-ers through Nerekhall (and another group through Labyrinth), they all did fine.

Yeah I decided on Shadow Rune, I can get a chance to play some quests I didn't get to, mostly those in the second act. I will be using Rumors from the first two small box expansions and the Heroes and Monster packs, so that should plenty.

I think you can introduce new players very well to Nerekhall from the get-go. You have a very wide selection of quests from the start where you can pick less complicated quests in the beginning so your group gets how this game plays out. Tell them very clearly about the goals and rewards and how the reinforcement works and even tell them a few strategies in the beginning, even give them an understanding of your options. Don't get tired to emphasize the importance of search tokens and make sure to embed the special rules into the gaming world (which works very well in SoN imo) and they should do just fine.

I haven't played LoR yet, but to me it looks like you have a bigger quest-pool in SoN in the beginning.