What I Want From a Published Adventure

I've been gradually reading "Dragon of Icespire Peak", the adventure that came with the D&D "Essentials Kit", and musing on "Lost Mine of Phandelver", the adventure that came with the D&D "Starter Set". The contrast between the two led me to thinking about what I want from a published adventure.

Basically, for me the mark of a good published adventure is this: I can buy it, read it, run it as-written, and have a good experience.

If the adventure is badly presented (or just really complex), such that I have to make a whole lot of notes before I can successfully run it, that's a big negative mark. If the adventure has some good ideas but is badly flawed as-written, such that I have to put in significant effort to 'fix' it, that's a really big negative mark. If the adventure relies on obscure bits of lore that aren't spelled out in the adventure text, and that require me therefore to hunt down some other supplement, then that's another big negative mark. (And if I ever have to Google something, that's a deal-breaker.)

I should note that I don't particularly consider adventure re-use to be a particular positive (since I have enough adventures that I'll never run out, even if I never do anything other than run games for the rest of my life); nor do I particularly consider modularity, the ability to lift chunks of the adventure out to use elsewhere, to be a particular boon. Likewise, if I'm going to run an adventure I'm happy to run it in the game, edition, and setting intended, so the ability to move it elsewhere is no more than a minor nice-to-have.

(I will note that I do consider it acceptable to reference the contents of the core rulebooks for the game and, if applicable, the main book for the chosen setting. Especially if you provide page references so that I know where to find things. But if you need to go into a supplement, you really should be reprinting the salient details.)

Of course, once you've achieved the basics, there are varying levels of 'good' to aspire to. An adventure with a compelling storyline, or interesting mysteries, or a great villain is of course better than one without. But those things come after basic competence has been achieved - they cannot make up for fundamental failings.