The game rightly aims at "plausibility" (i.e. it is possible, so the players can suspend their sense of disbelief) rather than "realism" (because the situation is anything but realistic) and that's good. In a realistic game Monica would go to some other lawyer, get all the illegal confiscations stopped, and the game would end in Episode 1 chapter 1.
This update was a change of pace - it all revolves around one extended scenario, rather than advancing a bunch of plot lines. I liked that change of pace. The one disappointment was that nothing advanced in the bar or the photo shoots, so you had to do those scenes (to eat and to get the $5000) with no payoff. We did get to see the dark passage use, though, so hurrah for that.
The odd thing was that, on the one Saturday night I played, Steve came to dinner again and the game replayed the first dinner in its entirety.
