Heavenly has one of the strongest visual arguments in American skiing. Lake Tahoe views, town energy, casinos, lodging, and cross-border novelty all make it easy to sell. The honest skier's take is that the experience can be more complicated than the postcard suggests.
The mountain is huge and scenic, and for mixed groups that matters. People can ski, eat, wander, and build a trip around South Lake Tahoe instead of asking the skiing to do everything. That's a real advantage.
The downside is that Heavenly can feel disjointed. Traverses, wind exposure, base-area choices, and crowd patterns can make the skiing less straightforward than the trail count implies. If the goal is pure Tahoe terrain, Kirkwood often makes a cleaner argument.