Hey everyone! I tried HHN for the first time a couple years ago when they had Cabin In The Woods. As enjoyable as that house was, the park was entirely too crowded for the night to be fun. Waiting in line for 1.5 hours for each house sort of left a bad taste in my mouth.
Yikes, I always follow a touring plan so never wait that long. We always say the advantage of Disney over Universal is you don't need to pre-plan, but HHN is the exception. It's insane to go in without a plan of attack or you'll be waiting in lines for hours.
Express is ideal, and don't go on a weekend - try a Thursday - but if you don't want to shell out for Express, try a touring strategy. I took a few friends and we saved a ton by following a plan and got loads done.
First of all, make sure you're in the park (assuming you have an AP/day tickets) and go to the holding area outside Finnegans an hour or so before the event. They will let you into one of the soundstage houses early, and you will have done that before anyone else is even in the park. Then do the next soundstage house, by which time everything is open. Cut across to Kidzone (you may be held by a rope if it's not open yet, so just wait and be the first past that when it does - if possible I always used to cut through Gardens of Allah for an even shorter shortcut too) and you can do the houses there before they get too busy.
Do that and you can do five or six easily in the first hour, then line up for whatever has the shortest, and leave the very long lines until the end of the night when they tend to shorten. At peak time, when everything's 100 minutes, see Bill & Ted.
If you're there for several nights and on a budget, a touring plan like that coupled with a Frequent Fear pass will give you plenty of time to see it all and repeat favourite houses without having to buy Express.