Our group isn't that hardcore and we've been a little wary of expansions since they all seem to add increasing difficulty to the game, which I guess is fine for large hardcore groups but for casual 2-3 player groups not so much.

For example, everyone curses the base game "shuffle a solved mystery back into the deck unless you spend clues" mythos card, but there are cards a lot nastier in the expansions. "The End is Nigh" and the one that makes everyone impair their highest skill 4 times come to mind, and you can't even avoid those with clues! A lot of the newer expansion preludes seem B.S. as well (The King in Yellow in particular; you start with an extra rumor in play that does damage before it's solved and all you get is just enough clues to solve it?).

How is Dreamlands in this regard? We were considering getting it but not if it skyrockets the difficulty again with cheap shot mythos/encounter cards.

Dreamlands is a very special in this regard.

On one hand:

VERY strong investigators, very strong possessions, very strong Talents.

Basically the stuff you want to get like Assets are REALLY strong in this expansion.

On the other hand:

Certain Mythos Cards are ridiculously punishing without you having to do anything about it.

Atlach-Nacha is super difficult in low investigator count games. (somewhere around Yig's difficulty curve).

So for me it made the game more "unbalanced"

you have total easymode in the expansion

and you also have nightmare mode content there.

Overall the statistics suggest that the easymode content prevails and the Expansion is the easiest of them all (yet).

keep in mind however, it appears that not as many investigators out there have the expansion compared to others, and that the hardened veterans are the first, typically, to lay claim to the dreamlands and conquer their nightmares. Atlach-Nacha is pretty gross, and yes i've heard her compared to Yig and Cthulhu.

Still there will be a curve for the first tackle of any new Ancient one, and again the better players have many systematic strategies for dealing with the game that will help them win over newer or less inclined players.

8 hours ago, Runko said:

On one hand:

VERY strong investigators, very strong possessions, very strong Talents.

Basically the stuff you want to get like Assets are REALLY strong in this expansion.

On the other hand:

Certain Mythos Cards are ridiculously punishing without you having to do anything about it.

Atlach-Nacha is super difficult in low investigator count games. (somewhere around Yig's difficulty curve).

Oh no, so it's the power creep syndrome that plagued the later Arkham expansions? Powerful new items/investigators, but stronger AO's/mythos/monsters that made them necessary, rendering the original weapons/investigators somewhat obsolete?

I picked it up yesterday because I saw there was a KITTY ally card and couldn't refuse. Now I'm regretting it if the power creep is true.

Due to the randomness and the way expansions are handled in Eldritch Horror, I don't think power creep is a huge deal (aside from a few weak investigators) When they do a final expansion, some revisions of out of date cards would be very welcome.