I tried at a lot of front end ACL extensions (free and commercial) and this was the only one that did exactly what I needed, and did NOT have issues to install.
Installation is very easy (and I'm a noob to Joomla), the level of control is very good, support is first rate (responding the same day), and the price can't be beat! Don't waste time messing around with free extensions; get this and finish the job quickly.