Big focus on sitting practice – many hours of sincere, diligent practice, on hour-after-hour day-after-day meditation sitting, which can be a powerfully positive experience
Creates a tight, intense container for participants, where genuine spiritual transformative challenge and growth is possible and even likely
Logistically well-run organization
Goenka gives genuinely deep, powerful, and liberating teachings in the videos
Trustworthy/ethical organization, committed to genuinely serving people’s growth
Lives the spirit of charity and service by making their retreats available by donation (which makes the experience available to lower income people)

The negatives that I see to CVC:

The “marching awareness through the body” is just one of many mindfulness meditation techniques, and it is not one I find particularly powerful or useful. And yet, the CVC organization acts like it’s the only mindfulness technique of any legitimacy in the world.
Somewhat fundamentalist, sectarian, and dogmatic (and, no, Axel “karma and reincarnation” are subtle concepts that are not that “dogmatic” if one actually understands them – I’m talking more about Goenka’s seeming assertion that his lineage and mindfulness technique are the only true spiritual path in the world, that all other Buddhist and other religion’s lineages have strayed from the true path of enlightenment).
The minor cult of charismatic personality around Goenka
Goenka’s annoying chanting/singing of ancient scripture, in the ancient language, on the audio tapes