I passed the previous version of the CCSP exam just over a year ago now but I don't believe the current version is much different based on a comparison of the respective exam outlines.
I still maintain to this day even after passing six ISC2 exams (including the CSSLP very recently which I had heard similar/worse things about than what you've heard about the CCSP) that the CCSP was the most difficult of all of them.
This may well have been because it was the one I prepared for the least, and/or because it was the one for which I had the biggest gap between the previous certification preparation (three years versus a few months), as well as being only the second one I had earned.
I make these last couple of points because there is a lot of overlap between all of the ISC2 certs I hold so I definitely feel they all seemed to get easier and easier the more I did in a relatively short space of time due to an accumulative effect.
I've heard some people saying the CCSP was easy, that they had really short, simple questions. I certainly didn't get anything short and simple. The majority of the questions I faced were very verbose and written in confusing doublespeak. Some of the questions I had required me to scroll up and down the page to be able to see the whole question and all the answers. That certainly adds to the level of difficulty when you can't see the question and all the answers in one view.
I'd also say many of the questions were highly abstracted where they're looking to test the understanding of a concept but the wording used in the question itself will be completely out of context.
I actually came out of the exam after two hours (quite slow for me) with a severe headache and was elated to find I had passed so I wouldn't have to go through that ordeal again!
I used the official study guide and the official practice tests to study for the CCSP, and there were quite a few questions I received that seemingly were not covered in these two references and were also not covered by standard CISSP knowledge. (As there is a lot of overlap between the CCSP and CISSP you'll be able to use CISSP knowledge to answer many of the questions and therefore these topics aren't really covered in the CCSP guides.)
For the questions that did not seem to be covered by any CCSP or CISSP references I had to rely on my experience to provide the answer.
If I was asked to take the CCSP exam again, I would definitely hit the suggested reference list and read as many of the references as I could which is the methodology I used to pass each exam I've taken since the CCSP. I can't tell you how awesome it is to go into a supposedly tough exam and not face a single question where you don't have at least a cursory understanding of the topic at hand. It makes things so much easier!
Good luck with your studies!
