For months, I was in doubt about paying for this game. I saw some reviews, but I was not certain if it would be fun to play. So, I decided to give Marvel's Midnight Suns a chance, and I can confidently say it was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had in the gaming industry in recent years.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a unique blend of real-time strategy games like XCOM and card games like Hearthstone. I'm a big fan of games like XCOM, but I usually don't enjoy card games, which made me hesitant about this one. However, in the end, the card aspect is the heart of this game, and it enhances the strategy element, adding complexity and an element of luck.

About the gameplay, you have a stage with certain objectives, and you control a group of heroes facing off against enemies. Each hero has cards that require a certain amount of power to use and a designated area to cause damage. This requires you to strategically position your characters to attack your foes while avoiding enemy attacks. Meanwhile, you also need to manage your deck of cards.

The story is interesting and focuses on lesser-known heroes, although you still have a team that includes Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain Marvel. The connections between all the heroes are well-developed, and you'll become more interested in these lesser-known characters and how they come together to prevent the end of the world.

One downside for me is the hub area where you spend time between missions. It's quite large but not very enjoyable to explore.

The graphics may not be top-notch, but that wasn't a problem for me. During the missions, the game looks more beautiful because you get to appreciate the stage from an overhead perspective.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a delightful surprise, and it's a shame that it doesn't receive more attention. It's a fantastic game that deserves more recognition. If you enjoy strategy games or are looking for something unique, I highly recommend giving it a chance. In my opinion, it's worth every penny!

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.)

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.

Marvel’s Midnight Suns was a weird mix of systems, the concoction consisting of a hub area with exploration and relationship management along with missions with turned based combat and deck building. Many have preferred the action itself rather than the friendship busywork, but the whole package just clicked with me. I couldn’t help but like the drama and dysfunctional family dynamics.

It shouldn’t be compared to XCOM, though, as while being turn based it differed quite a bit. Combat took place in small arenas and was simplified overall, cards acting as skills with the choice of upgrading them as well as swapping them in and out. Again it worked for me to the point I was addicted to the loop.

Dripping with some of the most potent ‘just one more round’ energy I’ve seen in quite some time.

Found myself grinding in this with little rewards being offered by the game systems… other than the pure joy of finding new tactics to use between ever weirder hero combinations.

Easy to pick up compared to Firaxis’ Xcom titles and yet offers modest challenges in some encounters. You can paint yourself into a corner in one or two battles but never jeopardise your overall game. These become joyful puzzles to solve, not roulette spins of 50/50 shots to take.

Writing is hit and miss but when it gets it right, truly delightful throwback to 90’s Marvel that seems to have been washed away post MCU. Fans of that era well served with their chats amongst the Abbey’s characters, the dlc characters become some of the best.

This was a really solid experience pretty much all-around and was insanely good for the genre of game it comes from.

Going into this, I was pretty skeptical. I'm not that familiar with card games, or even turn-based ones for that matter, so I really wasn't sure at all whether I'd enjoy it or not. Almost pretty much instantly though as soon as I got my hands on the characters and gained control, I was having a really good time. It's actually, surprisingly, a very complex strategy game that combines the turn-based, card elements of the gameplay with a simplified RPG aspect that makes pretty much every faucet of the game really fresh. You can either grind encounters, grind encounters for resources to upgrade your abilities or the currency to tailor your heroes' appearances to your liking or, perhaps one of my favourite parts of the game, literally sit and chat with the roster of heroes.

I really enjoyed trying to get onto the good side of some of my favourite characters and getting to know them (Wolverine, Deadpool, Iron Man, Captain America) as well as doing the most random as fuck activities with them to make them even more powerful in combat. The game has a very unique way of approaching encounters given which heroes you use and certain combinations are a lot better than others, so it's not really just mindlessly picking whoever to take with you nor does the game reward you for not putting effort into upgrades or tools used to give you an advantage. All of those factors actually make the gameplay a lot more satisfying than you'd think, so grinding in this game isn't nearly as draining especially given most of the grinding really is the core of the gameplay outside of the story missions, it didn't feel repetitive at all.

The narrative, although, is pretty subpar. It's not great but it has it's moments and in the end was pretty enjoyable for the most part, I think it was honestly leagues better than Square Enix's attempt at an Avengers game, (I even preferred some of the voice acting.) It get's the job done, basically, as Magik would say. It doesn't outstay it's welcome nor does it try to take itself too seriously, though given whether you have the DLC addition of Deadpool or not, that probably changes things, but overall I think it does a really good job of utilising each character to their fullest, despite Hulk not getting as much screen time as a Midnight Sun at the end.

As said, it's a really solid experience, even more so if you're into Marvel. It's a very fresh, unique take on the franchise in darker waters that has such a great atmosphere and ambience, it's nice seeing the characters in a different light and I'm interested to see where the series goes next with who I can assume to be is Dr. Doom (and the addition of the Fantastic Four.)

This game is a weird one. Its not superhero X-COM and its not your usual superhero game. Instead its a card battler, deck builder with some light social aspects sprinkled onto after missions where you get to have close platonic relations with your fellow heroes.

However I will say that it takes awhile for the gameplay to get good, it needs a few of the upgrades you get from research and a lot of the better cards for the general combat to become more fun. One major downside for me had to be the small maps, and general lack of enemy variety as well not many Marvel Mystical Villains that weren't just Fallen Villains we know, Lilith and Cthon. Doctor Doom is teased about but will seemingly appear in a sequel that will not happen. One of the positives is the lack of MCU, this game takes more from comics while changing some aspects like aging up characters like Nico, and changing who takes Magik into limbo as little girl.

Overall I'm a little sad that there won't be a sequel but im also glad that Firaxis didn't get sent to the Marvel mines.

It's taken me eight months to complete this game and while there were times I set it down, I have over 100 hours of playtime and I don't regret a minute of it. From the interesting story to the engrossing social aspect of building your team, this game was everything I wanted from an X-Com-like.

The few complaints I have is that the story does drag a little towards the end and the combat never really opens up in a way that is really rewarding. That being said though, I thought it was a phenomenal game and even though the likelihood of a sequel is low due to the game's underperforming sales, if there is one, I will be there on Day 1!

Marvel's Three Houses is an extremely fun game. Even with the 80+ hours of repetitive grinding for the 100%, I loved it all.

As someone who doesn't really know too much about Marvel, it was cool learning about their backstories and how they interacted, especially with the really good voice casting. A few of them got annoying though, mainly Iron Man since he never stop quipping.

The gameplay for the first three hours seemed like a knockoff mobile game to me at first, mainly because I was expecting XCOM but Marvel. As you get deeper though, so many more strategies become available and it becomes and extremely fun create your own solution puzzle game, which was interesting and really fun.

The overall story I thought was fine. Nothing that had me at the edge of my seat or made me actually feel for any of these characters, but it was interesting enough for me to not be bored.

Exploring the Abbey was a hit or miss at best, and borderline boring at worse. Sure, you can ogle at the pretty graphics, but all you were doing was just pressing E on everything and doing only four minigames.

Although I think the battle animations are gorgeous and flow so well (especially Blade's), but all other animation looked extremely poor. Facial animations were robotic, bodily animation were mainly just standing still, and overall just felt soulless.

My biggest gripe with the game falls with the level design. While I absolutely love using the environment to my advantage, I found out that most of the time, objects were aligned in an X shape, making level designs super repetitive. I would've liked to see more varied designs with more unique pit positions (like the Venom bell level) and more varied environment interactions. If they ever do a sequel (which won't happen unfortunately) I'd love their take on having different elevation.

The Goddess in Green sighs, tracing an eyeline between the girl across from her and the cards in her hand. It’s a stacked deck, no matter how you cut it, yet still the girl agonizes over her decisions. Ten, maybe twenty minutes ago, this was fun, exciting even, but with the fifth reshuffling of the deck, the allure had gotten old. Yet still the girl crunched numbers in her head, a million simulations running into the same walls, chasing a fairy tale solution. Two rerolls, a move, three interactables, Witchfire… No, a reroll, two interactables, Make ‘Em Bleed, move, interactable… Maybe start with the Witchfire –

“Please, play something. Magik’s dead. You still have a revive. What are you doing?”

“Nah shut up I’m cooking.”

She wasn’t. No amount of rerolls would save this botch job of an operation, and the reality was dawning on her. She gazed out onto the field – A half-vampire, a moody Russian, and a catty goth against an endless sea of hellacious hellforged and nefarious Nazis – and laid her face in her palms. The Goddess’s army was too strong, too quick, too lucky… A floodgate of poor excuses couldn’t hold back the waves of embarrassment washing to shore. The girl held the glowing red button, ending yet another turn. The horde consumed her heroes, and everything went black.

Bolting awake in bed, the haunting charm of the abbey provided little in the way of respite. Defeat had soured the girl’s mood, and even the cheery faces of close friends, their tiresome quips ever ready, couldn’t save the day. It was all so… morose. Until he, tall, firm, decked in dark leather, came into view. Towering over her, her heart would skip a beat at the mere sight of him, her brain melt from a wayward glance of his ruby red eyes. At the subtle hint of his fangs, she would swoon, unable to catch herself…

He was Blade, the Damphyr, and he was the lone purpose for her struggle. Her moniker, “The Hunter”, was an excuse, a pointless exposition to connect an unrequited A-to-B, a boy meets girl of a supernatural variety. Sure, evil mom, old gods, Salem, witches, whatever; the vampire had dug his teeth in, and she found no reason to complain. He made it all seem worth it… The countless hours in battle, locked in mortal combat with the Goddess in Green, the endless monotony of gamma coils and reforged cards, the insipid dialogue spewing from our compatriots… it was all worth it, to spend time with Blade.

Sixty hours, seventy missions, eighty days, thousands of cards. It all stacked up so neatly, but whereas the many found their thrills in the uninspired tale of The Hunter, or another showcase of The Avengers as prime show-stealers, I lay alone in a singular rationale for finishing this journey.

I played a sixty hour game because I think Blade is neat :)

Despite recently writing in my Persona 5 Tactica review that games like this weren't my cup of tea, along comes Marvel's Midnight Suns, a tactical RPG that does just about everything it can to win me over - and succeeds. In fact, it's more akin to a trading card game than anything else, mixed with a healthy dose of social simulation - a fact I probably would have been way more enthused about sooner if this game was at all marketed properly. Instead, I'm coming to the party late, but nevertheless happy to be here.

While this game comes from the makers of Xcom, I would actually describe its closest comparable as Fire Emblem: Three Houses. However, a couple of key changes in design turned it from something was largely carried by its non-gameplay elements (as Three Houses was for me) to one that almost perfectly married combat and social sim in execution. The card-based nature of Midnight Suns was one part of it, although the lack of a grid for movement was a bigger deal (positively!) than I expected. While there is a limited number of moves in a turn, you have the freedom to move anywhere on the board, meaning strict positioning plays a much less prominent role. No worrying about being on the wrong tile and having the entire enemy team gang up on you, especially because (aside from bosses) all enemies telegraph which of your units they'll attack. There are no surprises, meaning you're free to concentrate on crafting your strategy from the cards in your hand.

These enemy encounters also have a lot of different win conditions present, resulting in no shortage of variety to combat, especially when you factor in that each Marvel character you control also has their own unique playstyle. Some characters, like Blade, are built around inflicting status effects like bleed on enemies, while others such as Wolverine and Spider-Man are about chaining together attacks on multiple enemies, either with your cards or by using environmental hazards on the battlefield. If I had one complaint with this part of the game, it's that there aren't a lot of unique enemy units - you'll be staring down hydra goons and green demons for most of your playtime. The DLC adds an entirely different set of units to fight (vampyres), but those DLC missions also bring in an additional problem I'll touch on later.

Then you have the social aspect of Marvel's Midnight Suns, the thing I had no idea was even present yet becomes the star of the show. A big part of this game's enjoyment comes from simply hanging out with your favorite Marvel guys. Want to go fishing with Blade? Play video games with Spider-Man? Join a book club with Captain Marvel? Go on friendship dates and give presents to Iron Man? If so, you'll be spending a lot of time doing that. Talking with all these various Marvel characters and learning their stories forms a core part of the gameplay loop, as doing so also helps you level them up and gain better cards/stats. This is ultimately an RPG, after all, but being able to see a different side to these iconic characters than most games allow is genuinely cool.

So who's doing all this, you ask? Your very own Marvel OC, of course. Also something I had no idea about, but when you start the game, you create your own character, dubbed "The Hunter" by others. This could easily be something cringe or forgettable but they actually took the time to make Hunter their own character, complete with voice acting! Yeah, you're super OP so you can stand alongside the giants of the Marvel universe but they somehow make it work. Speaking of voice acting, this game has a TON of dialogue. A little too much, in fact.

See, if I have one major gripe with Midnight Suns, is that there's almost TOO much content. This is factoring in the DLC, mind you, since I got the complete version on sale, and those characters and the entire DLC storyline are integrated almost seamlessly into the main narrative, so you'll be doing those missions as you work your way through it. This game took me over 60 hours, way more than I was expecting, and while I don't mind long games, Midnight Suns really drags towards the end. As I said, there's a lot of dialogue - characters usually have something to say after anything that happens - and while you can skip or ignore it, there are opportunities for friendship points in nearly every conversation, so it pays to pay attention. That said, by the end, I was almost entirely checked out as I pushed towards the final mission. Believe me, it's a lot.

The story itself is also pretty blasé. It's your pretty standard Saturday Morning superhero affair, with a bunch of good guys banding together to fight a mystical evil with mostly PG language and scenarios. It's also about these two groups - the titular Midnight Suns and the Avengers - being forced together to deal with this threat and the constant internal conflict these bands of heroes rub against. In theory, it works, but again, not nearly for the runtime of the entire game. There are three chapters and the repetitive nature of constant bickering between the two groups does wear on you well before they put their differences aside for good at the end. There is at least some really good character work for the individual heroes here and there, however, and if you do have the DLC, I would even say Midnight Suns features the best-written version of Eddie Brock ever put forward in media. Another surprise!

Nitpicks with story and length aside, I really adore Marvel's Midnight Suns. This game went overlooked by a lot of people, myself included, but there's so much here that I can definitely say it's worth your time, at least if you're into Marvel. Hell, I didn't even get into the fact this game has a hub world, with third-person exploration! Fucking wild! How did they not market this shit better?

I'm not done with it yet, i have 63 hours of gameplay and i'm still on act 1. I'm loving every second of this game, it's a ton of fun and the characters are great. I don't give a shit about marvel, i played it because it was super cheap and the gameplay looked interesting. It's one of the most fun games i've played in a while and i'm addicted.

Doing extra side missions, upgrading my decks, trying new strategies, hanging out with the heros, it's a great loop. If i played it back in 2022 i would have considered it my GOTY.

Edit: I finished it a few days ago on Ultimate 1 after like 160 hours and loved every second of it. Most of the time is me just farming resources to upgrade my decks for every hero and maxing relationships. I'd go for 100% completion but i'm too lazy to get the light balance achievment right now, maybe in a future replay.

Spoilerish: My final team was Ghost Rider/Magik/Venom/Iron Man

Midnight Suns is a very strange game about a bunch of Marvel rejects, some well known heroes, and Lilith, the mother of demons, summoning Chthon, a slumbering ancient god. The premise is really simple: No one wants to help Lilith summon a literal god, so the heroes need to stop her in order to save earth.

The game is a tactical turn based card game, mixed with social sim elements, where your heroes need some friendly talk from time-to-time, and maybe they even invite you into a book club, or ask for some advice. This aspect from the game works wonderfully, as you learn to love each and every hero from the roster, making their "friend story" unique, and rewarding. If you max one of them out, you are rewarded with a very powerful ability, and even a cool costume, so your investment at the end pays off.

The main character (The Hunter) is also fairly customizable, and your cards are very varied compared to the rest of the cast. However, when you enter combat, the mixture of your hero and your selected partners will create a deck, that you can customize however you like. Every playstyle is supported, and even encouraged, as the game constantly gives you cards, perks and upgrades to toy around with.

I really liked the combat, the social sim aspect, and even the fun hub world, that connects everything together, but I started to get tired from the story, that seemingly never wanted to end, and even came with a lot of clichés. Being a Marvel product, I was ready for some very cartoony story, but overall, the stakes were there, and the motivations were fine, but the pacing was horrible.

Also, some of the characters are utterly annoying, while others are way too likeable, and some of them are weird. Every person can easily find a favorite from this bunch, because they are very varied when it comes to personalities.
Some of my favorites were Blade, Deadpool (DLC), Magik and Scarlet Witch.

Overall, I had way too much fun with this game, and I was utterly invested in it's gameplay loop, but the story's length is way too much, and I wanted a bit more variety in terms of combat scenarios but that is about it. I can wholeheartedly recommend Midnight Suns to anyone who wants to have a fairly good time with a somewhat Lovecraftian Marvel game, and enjoys turn based combat.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is what you get when you combine Marvel's superheroes and a digital trading card game into an XCOM style 3D strategy game. The story revolves around the titular Midnight Suns, Marvel's supernatural and mystical themed faction, reviving an ancient "chosen one" in order to combat the return of the demon Lilith. Despite the magic themed story and name, Hydra comes to the aid of Lilith, and Ironman lends his and the Avenger's assistance to the Midnight Suns, allowing for all manner of Marvel heroes and villains to appear, magic or otherwise. The story feels good, and mostly in line with how Marvel does their comics, but being stuck behind a player created "chosen one" character in a Marvel story feels like an obstacle to enjoying the universe. Every character in the game has their own deck of cards that can be used in battle, each with their own specific traits and quirks that give them their own strengths, combos, and playstyles. There is plenty of customization between your own character, the other heroes, and the Abbey, the Midnight Suns' base of operations. If you're a fan of games like Hearthstone and Gwent, and you appreciate Marvel, you'll enjoy this, but don't expect much if you're not into card games. Not worth it at full price, but if you can get it on sale, you'll get your worth out of it.

A solid and unusual combination of a superhero, card, and character relationship driven RPG. As a Marvel game shows a knowledge of the history of the comics and characters but, like the first XCOM remake, it's a good first effort but every area falls just short of greatness.

You will create the character of The Hunter who will act as your main character in your homebase for exploration and as one of the needed characters on story missions and a useable character in side missions. Your time is spent going on story or side missions accessible from a map you can bring up in your base, with you being able to go on as many side missions as you want while story missions might require a general mission to be completed between them or something plot related to be researched over the course of one side mission. Your base allows you to explore and find information on the history of the area, characters, and yourself while also allowing you to converse and spend times in "hangout" events with each of the heroes you can recruit. Unlocking new areas of the base can allow you to find bonuses for your character and raising your friendship level with allies improves each of their passive abilities and eventually allows them to unlock their ultimate skill. Even if you spend a lot more time playing through the game than is needed, the base area frequently has new conversations between characters, new social media posts by the news or character discussions, hangout dialogues between Hunter and each of the other heroes, and each character tends to have comments on each of the main story missions if you approach them afterwards sometimes changing depending on if there were with you or not in that mission.

Each hero has their own playstyle that tends to fit well with their characterization. Hunter is the most customizable able to focus on a mixture of attack, tanking, healing, support, etc. Spider-Man has bonuses and a card focused on making the most use of environmental attacks and an ultimate that allows him to play his next three cards for free. Blade is focused around attacking multiple enemies and applying bleed effects to them. Captain America can easily gain block and taunt enemies to protect his allies as well as having some support abilities to protect allies or to draw cards. Doctor Strange has skills that become strong the more heroism you have and has buffing abilities that can improve or influence the cards in your hand and give you an extra card play next turn. Iron Man's cards give a focus to his ego with some doing more the more cards of his you have in your hand and many become more powerful and going right back into your hand if you redraw them. Nico's abilities are more randomized with different powerful buffs available at random, mid to high damage that might effect random enemies, and an ability to lower the heroic costs of the cards in your hand. Magik can create and launch enemies through portals with knockback attacks that you can position the exit direction of and can more easily reposition enemies to set them up for AoE attacks. Wolverine and Captain Marvel act as a mixture of tank and damage dealer. Scarlet Witch more easily effects enemies and allies that are near her with AoE attacks and buffs. Hulk does more damage as you build his rage with certain skills or through taking damage. Ghost Rider has powerful attacks that often damage himself or that might discard your cards but also gains a higher maximum HP value as he defeats enemies.

Gameplay involves you going on a mission with three characters who each have eight cards equipped to them. You are trying to defeat all enemies while at times trying to complete an objective either before time runs out or before you are worn down by enemy reinforcement after each turn. Each turn you draw a hand of cards and can play three of them, with some being free to not count to your limit or having the property quick which allows them to be free if you defeat an enemy with the card. Each turn gives you two redraws and any cards saved in your hand at the end of a turn carries over to your hand next turn. Character cards can give them or allies passive buffs, do damage to enemies or areas, knock enemies into objects or each other, allow for more card draw, etc. Using attack and skill cards generates heroism which allows for you to use your heroic cards, combo cards, (strong attacks between two characters unlocked as you increase friendship levels), and in some cases to use objective based cards. Heroism can also be used to interact with parts of the environment that can damage or cause status effects to enemies like explosive barrels, throwing a boulder or crate, kicking an object at enemies, pulling an object on top of your enemies, etc with these costing heroism but not counting against your card plays and being a secondary way to move characters around. Each turn gives you one move action where you can either move a character to a spot that might have them avoiding an enemy attack or give them a better spot to use one of their abilities or a move action can be used as a free way to do some damage by shoving an enemy into a wall, another enemy, off a cliff, into a hazard, and eventually into another one of your allies for bonus damage.

Skill cards can be upgraded between missions with two of the same cards being able to be combined once to give a stronger version of the base ability either improving damage or added a new side effect to the card. Once a card has been updates you can spend the attack, skill, and heroic points you gain to roll two random modifiers you can then pick one of for the card. On the one hand this system is interesting as it gives you some added customization for cards with some of these modifiers pairing very well with certain heroes or cards but it is also random, would require grinding for resources if you do it too much, and there are certainly some very highly valued options you can get as well as some very mediocre ones. You might roll a modifier that does doubles the cards damage, makes it free to play, has it generate one or two extra heroism, has if give you heroism if you choose to redraw the card or you might gain a minuscule amount of block or taunt on a character you don't want taking damage or get added damage against full health enemies on a card that you will only be using against minion enemies 99% of the time who die to any damage they take already.

As you complete missions you are given a 1-3 star rating and getting enough 2-3 stars will unlock higher difficulty settings that you can switch between at any time between missions. The game tends to be very easy unless you start getting to those last three unlockable settings, and that's without me really making use of much skill rerolls, I tended to just take one of the first results I got or reload and take nothing if it was nothing useful to save resources.

There isn't a large amount of variety when it comes to mission types, some do change things up or give bonus objectives in different ways but too many of them revolve around big enemy shields an objective and you either break the protection then use a card/destroy what was being protected. By the end of the game there also just aren't that many different enemy types either, by the end you start to see a very similar variety. The lack of variety also applies to character abilities to some extent between the attack, skill, and heroic moves each character only has 10 different cards (with the exception of Hunter who has 40) and one of these is always their final ultimate skill you get when you max their friendship and complete a puzzle challenge mission with them (Hulk being an exception as his is only available after you compete the game). Not only does having ten total cards and eight equipable slots where you might want to equip multiple cards with the same abilities become a bit limiting variety wise but each character also tends to have somewhere between 1-3 skills that are either just terrible or much worse than anything else they have even if they would be ok otherwise. Some characters even have bad ultimate skills. As good as the main ideas behind the combat can be, things can start to get a bit repetitive.

There are a lot of good moments between the characters at your base but most of these tend to come from your one on one conversations with them or through the conversations you overhear. There a bit too much high school drama TV show style moments with character infighting, not trusting people, or jealously. Most of the actual in mission conversations are also quite poor, often having a feel that it would be from a comic book but a bad comic book. There are frequent references, both through subtle to obvious visuals and conversations, to the wider Marvel universe, pointing out more obscure elements, highlighting creators, or references real world connections like things actors who have played the characters have done that can be fun for fans of the comics to spot. Where some of these come from is the missions you can send lone characters out on that give you text information on the event or what other nonplayable characters are doing before you send a character to aid them, getting back from your mission gives you a follow-up with what happened with the character you assigned as well as giving them new skill cards.

The game is greatly improved with all of the DLC with the four new characters to play as (Deadpool, Morbius, Storm, and Venom), those characters each adding to the already high number of conversations and media posts in the game with them interacting to events with almost the same frequency of main characters, some new enemy types, and Blade having a narrative role in many of the DLC stories and getting to fulfill his role as a vampire hunter when he felt like he didn't have as much to do in the main storyline. Once you complete the game you are able to play through again in a new game plus mode where the level cap is raised, you will have access to your unlocked and customized abilities, and where you can use any heroes before they would be unlocked (though they will not appear in the hub area before they would be introduced through the story). The only negative to the DLC is Deadpool is an oddly designed character with a strangely limiting playstyle that most of his abilities revolve around, a passive ability that regenerates HP each turn which fits his character but taking damage is completely against how he is meant to be played, some poor abilities, and a lot of very dull animations to go with his skills, though his story and base scenes are great.

Videos:
https://youtu.be/d0G3y6yWUAw?si=adnC93Qhp_TemWMW
https://youtu.be/cMSeo-xWa90?si=5FGML161k3DbCkfH
Screenshots: https://twitter.com/Legolas_Katarn/status/1738649828744409312