I’m genuinely curious, what do you actually enjoy about the original Sandman, that you think was missing from Overture? And what is the other “good work” that Gaiman does nowadays? Overture is so, so Gaiman-y, I genuinely find it odd a Gaiman fan would have as harsh a reaction as yours to it.
I just couldn't stand the story, it wasn't well written and didn't really match up well to the old stuff, at least in my opinion. As to what Gaiman does well nowadays, I've read a few of his post-Sandman books and enjoyed them (The Ocean at the End of the Lane is good, and his Norse Mythology book was great). He's also done a few good post Sandman comics, like Marvel 1602, and he did a lot of work on the Good Omens TV Show, which was pretty good (and had the benefit of him not being in charge and the original source material having been co-written by Terry Pratchett, which is probably why it worked while this Sandman audio is looking like it will be complete crap). He also wrote the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Wife", which was really, really good. So he can and does do good work nowadays, but in my opinion he's completely lost touch with the Sandman material and should just stop tarnishing his legacy with it by just putting out crap in that universe. His run was great and it ended, every time he goes back he does a worse job with the material.
The Audible page for The Sandman has a couple other clips, Dream readies himself for a visit to hell, and Dream identifies the demon he seeks.
I downloaded the whole thing when it came out but I've been so busy that I haven't listened to more than the first half of the first episode (Morpheus still imprisoned...).
Can you buy it by itself or can you only listen with a subscription? While the page is loading a button to buy it is up, but when it finishes it disappears.