Did I seriously go out of my way to play through a honestly pretty mid-strategy card game and pay an extra 20 dollars for DLC just so I could get the privilege to enjoy a good version of Deadpool..........well....yeah........... :/

I mean don't get me wrong if you like X-Com and other strategy games I'm sure you'll like this, it's just that I honestly don't personally care for strategy games and if I'm being 100% stright with you the game is beyond easy for like the first 20 hours; I just wanted to see a character I once loved actually done well and not like how's they've been portraying every single medium since the movie. Does this make me possibly the most reddit pilled out of all my friends? OH YEAH 100% UNDOUBTEDLY, but at least for me I can pull out the long time fan card and say I like this character before they became completely insufferable and a tool for Marvel's neverending slop machine of a cinematic universe.

When I say that Deadpool that we have in this game is probably the most well written and suddle he's been since his 2013 run that should probably tell you how dire it's been for the last 10 years. For some reason for the longest time Deadpool has been a hard character for writers to work on for some reason, see most hacks writers looked at the movie as their main influence or they think they've understood the character through cultural osmosis which is pretty the much equivalent of thinking you've understood the character by reading an unfunny bumper sticker. Deadpool at his best is when he's an annoying jackass but everyone around him either hates him or feels some sort of pity, He's not a character you wanna laugh at he's a character that bottles up his emotions and pushes other people he perceives to be his friends away while hiding all of his more nuanced aspects behind a super thick wall of irony so no one can hurt him. He can sometimes get better and in the case of his 2013 run even work on himself to be a better person for him and his kid, but at the core of his character he's a sad pathetic worm that can't die and refuses to go away. The movies kinda did that but as soon as Ryan Reynolds signed on to play the character the films stopped being Deadpool movies and instead became another linchpin in Reynold's adventure capitalist money chasing one note acting nepo career.
The game gets this dynamic down almost perfectly, although it stumbles a little bit here and there at times. He still has traces of his "lol chimichangas aren't I clever that I know I'm in a video game" that gets on my nerves but that dynamic of everyone else in the game just hating Deadpool constantly is still there and it works really well; especially with Blade. He’s pretty much an outcast for a majority of his time in the game and since the game gives you the ability to go on activities and hangouts with him you get to see a much more personal side of him. More a majority of the time you try to make a somewhat tangible connection with him he’ll either bounce off the question with a stupid joke or make a light-hearted threat until you get to the very near end of his relationship arc where he’ll finally open up just a tiny amount but enough to where your words actually get to him and make him care, granted it’s not a lot and he’ll still push you away with his annoying jokes but he’ll care more about you as a friend; which is technically growth for him and you know what that’s better

Out of the other characters in the game and even it’s DLC Deadpool feel ultimately out of place because this a game centered around the supernatural side of the Marvel universe and having a pudo-XMan running around killing vampires, demons, and a supernaturally corrupted Sabretooth with Blade and Ghost Rider is…..well…..dumb..dumb..it………it’s really fucking dumb. But like in a way that’s very camp and comic booky and honestly I’ll take this over any of that MCU coded poorly written Insomniac slop shit (My opinion on Spider-Man 2 has soured in the months I played it in). So yes I did indeed play a 50 hour long strategy card game just for Deadpool, and I will probably never touch this game ever again. Could I have just gotten all my info from clips on youtube instead of paying 20 plus another 20 for the season pass…..probably, but do I regret it? ……………..eh it’s still a better version of Deadpool then last comic run so I’d say it was worth it.

(Also in case anyone was wondering what my thoughts on Deadpool and Wolverine are, it looks like a movie scientifically designed to piss me off and to make Reddit soy. I will not be watching because I have standards and would rather go see Sonic 3 or a real movie instead.)

This game should be the poster child of a game ‘getting in the way of itself’. What I mean by that is, the actual combat encounters and card based gameplay is top tier and genuinely so enjoyable. I loved setting up a round to just sweep through the enemies while constantly having my attacks refunded - so satisfying when it all just works.

The flipside on this is that between these great missions that have you doing a cary of objectives and countering many different enemy types, is a terrible cringe inducing Disney Channel Show for tweens.

It honestly felt like they couldn’t work out the demographic for this game, as part of it feels like aimed at older people who like slower strategy games, and the other part feels like it was made for kids who grew up on Iron Man firing off constant zingers for a couple movies in a row.

As I found out in my Need for Speed review, I really have less patience for this kind of dialogue and game setup than what I thought, and ultimately it marred my experience and interrupted the flow of the game enough to make me shelve it.

My advice, play this muted and go watch youtube while you spam through the dialogue between the excellent missions and gameplay.

both the main story and the DLC questline end with cliffhangers teasing popular characters which is pretty funny now that we know we're never getting a midnight suns 2 because no one bought this game outside of a sale (including me). so lmao.

Midnight Suns is a pretty cool game with a unique and satisfying combat system that actually had a lot of layers in it. Most of the other stuff isn't that interesting.

It's a card based SRPG. It doesn't sound good on paper but it's from Friaxis (xcom devs) and while I dont think they have any card games under their belt they clearly knew what they were doing with the system. Despite the fact that on paper you can "only" play 3 cards a turn, good smart play of a combination of your cards/deckbuilding, map interactables and movement skills can lead to very explosive turns. While a quick fear of it being card based is that sometimes you get complete bricks of turns, I had very little turns over the course of my 60~ hour playthrough that felt like i just couldn't do shit. Recycle often can ungum up hands and if your hands are still getting gummed up while skill issue man put less heroics in your deck.

To go with the good core is both varied enemy list with each their own rules and missions with their own unique rules. The dogs all aggro on the same target, giving you pause to either try not to have 3 dogs hit your squishy hero, or abuse a hero with taunt/counter to force all of them to hit them with one taunt skill. The nest mother summons towers that you dont want to keep alive, but also damage her if you break them, and shes always protected by a guardian that makes you unable to target her. Do you prioritize killing her rocks and whittling her down, or do you have a line that lets you just sheer brute force it? These kind of decisions are often, and it's really just enjoyable even when you're grinding.

Your deck is made up of what heroes you bring to a mission, each hero comes with their own unique card pool and gimmicks. Deadpool gets a stacking buff based on how many people he kills and his cards improve in various ways basd on his stack. Most of Iron Man's cards dont get recycled when you discard them, but instead improve in various ways from either extra keywords or more damage. Ghost riders cards do great damage but all come with downsides like forcing you to discard or taking damage. I think the card pools per character are oddly small which is disappointing but the characters are varied enough that it doesn't get that repetitive, and also there's an endgame grind mechanic to let you roll for extra effects on cards for even more deckbuilding options

Outside of the combat is a combination of xcom base building and like hero social links. Interact with the heroes between missions to build relationships giving individual heroes boosts while getting permanent boosts by upgrading the abbey, or also exploring the abbey grounds for its own questline. Unfortunately, the not combat parts of this game are definitely its weakest part.

The main story is pretty sauceless. It's a very clean cut heroes fight corrupting evil elder god for the most part. It tries to mix it up with some hero drama between, particularly like between the original midnight suns getting frustrated with the avengers abruptly showing up taking command, but it's not good and feels like highschool soap drama. Most of the social links stuff is also pretty unmemorable opening up about their doubts and anxiety dumps or just talking about how cool the protag is. There's a couple fun little side things but it's played almost too straight most of the time for how weird the cast of characters are. And also when its trying to funny it's often not.

Most of the xcom building stuff doesnt have a lot of depth either. While the things they unlock are good and add layers to combat, there isn't much to them other than Do Unlocks Requirement (probably do X missions with Y hero or upgrade Z amount of skills with Y hero) > research it > unlock it next day, maybe gotta spend money to actually unlock it.

DLC is pretty good. If the game is on sale the complete edition is probably also on sale and I think the DLC is worth the on sale price upgrade. The season pass gets you 4 heroes and around 15~ missions and its own story line about killing vampires. The story still isn't good and the social links have the same issues but the missions are the equally high quality and amongst the hardest in the game, and also you can get Venom. Everyone loves Venom.

It's good. Playing it is fun and it's a unique and well designed combat system with good missions to back it up. But the story, writing, and in-between events are uninteresting and lets down what should be a fun setting of standoffish super heroes working together. I learned I like Magik a lot though, she's cool.

It just depends on whether or not you like superheroes. If you don't, it won't change your mind on them. If you do, it's a fun ~50 hour game with a lot of meat on its bones. The dialogue is lighthearted and ultimately persistent - it got chuckles out of me through quantity, not quality. There's a bit too much technobabble in the cutscenes, and hearing characters say "Erm, could you repeat that in ENGLISH, doc???" for the billionth time did get an eye-roll from me. The story is wholly original which is nice, and the variety of heroes here means that you'll find yourself attached to somebody, eventually. There's a support system in place mechanically identical to FE Three Houses, and it works just fine. Getting close to different heroes means new combat perks, and there are some solid mechanics in place to hasten development. I enjoyed Wolverine's support the most, as it was the most well-rounded in covering his character.

I will echo the sentiment that the combat is the best part of the game - though I didn't see it that way at the beginning. The early game is rough. Enemies spam attacks that stun your allies, you don't have many ways to counter things, and the constant reinforcements are annoying as hell... It's just a bad time all around. The mid and late game are where it's at: better enemy variety, varied objectives, and deck-building opportunities save the whole experience. Heroes that you could bin earlier as "low-damage" or "too situational" become viable as utility characters, thinning enemy numbers or providing buffs. It's at this point where the hand of Firaxis is most obvious, equalizing the playing field and ensuring you can have fun with most setups.

Midnight Suns is fun, has a big budget, and is finely focused even if the delivery is flawed. It's a flavor of SRPG that's quite unique, and one we'll probably never see again considering how hard it flopped commercially. Even so, I'm excited to see what Firaxis comes up with next.