Gentelmen,
all the black oil simulators do the same basic tasks. The only difference is the way they handle the input and output information. May be Eclipse has several options that other simulators do not have, but it is because it has been an industry standard for long time and the options have been included by request and help of clients.
Regarding thermal simulator, it seem that Stars from CMG have better reputation than the others. E300, GEM and VIP are the compositional simulators that people use for compositional simulations. They work in the same way. First you find the EOS and later, run the simulation