The first time I booted up this game, I felt an immediate sense of dread. However, after solving the first few puzzles, that feeling quickly went away, and it was replaced by a sort of fascination. Now that's mostly just because of circumstances in my life that make it so "programming" often means "a lot of work", but I feel most people also feel intimidated by TIS-100.
I'm not sure how to judge a game like this, but if I can have fun with this, then it must be doing something right.