Higurashi is something absolutely dear to me, so I thought I'd also love Umineko. But that VN… holy shit I could only get to the second VN because I ended up being bored to death. It had good parts, but it took ages to get to the point. In the Higurashi VN, the stuff in between the drama was fine because they made it fun. In Umineko they babble on and on about boring shit that near put me to sleep.
Higanbana was a bit meh, but it knew how to get to the point, that first arc was really powerful, the 2 that followed were kinda fun, and I also really liked the stair step arc in the 2nd disk. I should finish Higanbana. I just hope the remaining arcs aren't preachy as hell like the last story on the first disc was (as in they shove the moral in your face and keep repeating it)