The Curse of the Dark Pharoah expansion for Arkham Horror speeds up the game, bringing the Ancient One out sooner, and giving the players fewer gates to close before he appears. That is especially frustrating when your Ancient One is also designed to slow the closing of gates.
The players did win, but only because the Ancient One came out quite quickly, before our terror level was too high, and because we used the gate tokens we did get to become blessed. Being blessed and a willingness to share items in the final fight is what allowed us to win.