I've played AH 3e several times now. It's a strange game. Individually, all the rules work really well (except for Newspapers), however, taken all together the game just feels bland......
I felt a similar way about 2nd ed Arkham Horror.
It starts as a pretty pointless jaunt around the board, hoping something will happen.
I've had some great times with 2nd ed, but mostly when it's been heavily modded to make it more interesting
3rd ed feels really tight with a storyline and actually has some tension when playing it.
I've played 3 out of the 4 scenarios so far and overall, I'm pretty impressed.
The Doom counters are there to act as a sort of "Timer" (along with the news) for the game and to progress the plot points (which are often checking doom counts). It's supposed to represent the growing sense of dread and doom and more and more weird stuff happens.
The rules are laid out really well too, which is nice. So easy to find a ruling on something.
I much prefer the modular maps and hope some decent expansions come out for this game.
A downside of the embedded story is I wonder what the replay value of each scenarios is like.
There are a fair few branches on the decision trees to explore, so it may well be OK. It's hard to tell at this stage.
At this point I think that the Arkham theme is dragging these games down. There is so much you could do with a game like Arkham Horror: The Card Game that you can't do because every mythos cycle has to be about some nut-job trying to destroy the world. Same with AH 3e.
I own Arkham Horror, the card game and overall, I was pretty disappointed. It feels really messy and just hard work to play without a decent level of enjoyment.
For me at least, Arkham Horror 3rd ed feels like it's doing what the card game was trying to do, but did it well.
I can't speak for the expansion box, "Dead of night" as I've not really seen it. But it looks like it adds a couple of maps, stories and adds some criminal elements and so on.
I'll probably end up getting it if I can get it cheap. Don't think I'd pay full price for it though.
Anyway, Overall, I'm pretty pleased with 3rd ed and feel it's an improvement over earlier editions. But hey, whatever floats your boat.