Excellent Combat and boasts much better writing and VA work than I could have ever expected.

Unfortunately it feels a bit bloated and the strategy layer/deckbuilding mechanics leave a fair amount to be desired, but I can't say that the combat was frequently special and almost as enthralling as Firaxis' masterpiece XCOM2

Easy recommend if you are into tactics games.

There are really two sides to Marvel Midnight Suns. The sunshine and rainbows side is that its XCOM with superheroes which, like... yeah... that's the greatest pitch of all time. It's the equivalent of someone saying to me: "Callum. I'm going wild and serving you Ice Cream and Jelly together. Hope that's okay". Of course you can serve god to me in a bowl, I don't mind.

Midnight Suns' tense combat and "make every move count" mantra is why Firaxis is unrivalled in the strategy space, and as usual, they absolutely deliver in that department. Every hero is so unique and fun to experiment with, and the way you quickly grasp how to seamlessly merge their talents is sublime. I maybe would've preferred the game let me create my own team of superheroes so I can give everyone funny haircuts, name them shit like "Snakey Bones Johnson" and turn their armour toxic sludge green, but I'm happy to compromise for more of that sweet, sweet XCOM combat.

But the flip side of the coin is that everything around the battles is just really, really weird. And not weird in a way where I'm like, ooooh, how quirky and fun. Weird in a way where I'm like, this was a... creative choice... you... uh... could've made... that's for sure. Like, why does this feel like a self-insert fan fic? Why am I taking Wolverine for evening tea and a picnic outside a picturesque cottage? Why is every character utterly in love with me and committed to spending their whole lives waiting on my beck and call? Why are there like 70 currencies and all of them revolve around me potentially buying Captain America a new pair of swimming trunks? It's just a bizarre game. So much of it is runtime is spent fleshing out the downtime between missions, but the downtime is spent with such cliche and uninspired takes on these characters. There's no creative liberty or attempt to add a spin to these heroes that's unique to Firaxis' universe. Instead, they all just say variations of "YoU Ain'T HALf bAd HUnTeR" and blurt out their backstories like walking Wikipedia articles. It doesn't help that the writing isn't great either, making most of the dialogue cringey, while the NPC animations are static and lifeless.

Everything outside the combat just makes this feel like half a peak Firaxis strategy experience and half one of those bargain-bin-destined licensed games that I'd want for Christmas as kid but quickly realise were actually shite the moment I sat down to play them (I see you Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer). Don't get me wrong, there are much worse things out there than a game that's half XCOM 2 and half X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse, but I couldn't help but dread everything between the moments where I'd kill 9 demons in one turn by making Ghost Rider surf on a Chevy Impala while screaming about vengeance at the top of his lungs.

Midnight Suns is an excellent game, which manages to stay in the Xcom tradition while still being innovative.
From a gameplay point of view, the game is turn-based, which is very different from Xcom in the way combat unfolds, since you use cards that you draw to launch attacks, and you're subject to RNG to prepare your turns, which can be frustrating at first but keeps the combat part fresh and less repetitive. The presence of a large number of heroes, each with their own gameplay style, provides strategic diversity and means that battles can be approached in different ways. In addition to combat, the game places a great deal of emphasis on the relationship with the other heroes. Improving your relationship with other heroes allows you to obtain bonuses in combat and learn more about them, but this part of the game can hold many back.
Visually, the game is quite beautiful without being breathtaking, and the effects of spells and attacks are quite nice.
The story is also pretty cool, but developing the relationship with the other heroes is a real plus for the story, allowing you to see the relationship between the different heroes and enjoy the game even more. You get a good feel for the atmosphere between the different heroes, and the moments of friction and humour are very well magnified to make for a very enjoyable experience.
From an audio point of view, the game is really good, both in terms of the music and the soundtrack.
The game is entirely dubbed by very good actors, and this really adds to the game in terms of emotion.
To conclude, Firaxis have really pulled off a great coup with this game, they've created a turn-based style that's quite different from Xcom but still very enjoyable to play. I'd recommend this game to anyone who's a fan of Marvel, Xcom or both, but also to people who enjoy turn-based games.

Absorbente juego de combate por turnos que saca mucho partido al uso de cartas como la fuente de habilidades. Una vez te familiarizas con las mecánicas, es muy gratificante tanto en los combates como en el posterior desarrollo de las habilidades en la mansión. Una vez empiezas a mejorar las cartas y a descubrir otras, invita a experimentar y a aprovechar todo lo nuevo que va apareciendo. Porque, además, los retos que plantean las misiones se van complicando sin llegar a avasallarte. Tiene una progresión muy lograda.

También, si te gustan los tebeos de pijameo, se disfrutan las interacciones entre personajes en la mansión, con sus chorradas (¡Fiesta de cumpleaños sorpresa!), sus movidas (¡Los vengadores no nos quieren porque somos góticos!), sus intimidades (¡spoiler, spoiler, spoiler, Belasco!)... Sí que, llegado cierto punto, el juego se hace largo y he terminado dándole como loco al botón de pasar escena. Yo quería meterme en otra misión no otro diálogo entre superhéroes ya animados "vamos a reventarle la cara a Lilith de una vez".

Ahora he terminado un poco saturado pero si el pase de temporada está de ofertilla en el futuro seguramente vuelva a él.

On paper, I should love this game. It's Marvel characters with Fire Emblem Three Houses interactions. In execution, I just kept feeling shorted. I kept forcing myself to play in hopes it would get better. I finished the first Act (or was it Chapter) and had to be done. I don't know why the elements just aren't gelling for me. It feels like you're a character interacting with the world instead of being a part of the world. You also cannot romance any of the superheroes. I cannot put my finger on what je ne sais quoi is not there. It's just like the Walmart brand of both Marvel and Fire Emblem: Three Houses, fine but not great. In roughly 20 hours of play, it crashed 10 times. It has a pretty good autosave system, but it got really annoying. People complained like crazy about Saints' Row (2022), which I had one crash in the whole game, but not about this.

Loved my playthrough. Felt that the combat shines through and the open ended social tasks got tasky and checkboxy towards the end.

Would have loved this if it directed itself a bit more.

The upgrading and leveling meant to evoke XCOM progression of troops fell flat for me. The deck building was a little flat but the combat and story really shined.

Being a comics fan the story and dialogue function as intended for better or for worse.

I'm glad I played it. The DLC characters were great. Loved the ending. Hard to recommend if you don't love turn based games, comics or XCOM.