The idea of the XCOM people making a Marvel-themed strategy deckbuilder is pretty much me-from-5-years-ago's dream game. I'm more burned out on Marvel stuff these days (I say as I simultaneously play two Marvel card games while reading through the Claremont X-Men run) but this is still a really interesting take on Firaxis' usual shtick. Thankfully they went with a slightly more esoteric set of characters here, adapting an event that's so obscure you can't even read the whole thing on Marvel Unlimited, so its relatively fresh even among our Marvel-saturated times.

There's just too much of everything though. Too long, too much wandering around the hub world, and especially way too much writing - every little side-mission or discoverable item has dry-as-a-bone flavour text, every conversation is extended beyond its natural endpoint, and while the tone often sticks closer to the comics over the MCU it is obnoxiously quippy. Which is a real shame because they're clearly going for a comic book tone here and they do what you need to do to make a big crossover team event work - namely create tension between the goals and methods of the various groups - but the quips undermine every moment rendering any potentially poignant ones moot. I have to say I really dislike how they've written Tony Stark specifically in this, he is an irredeemable nightmare and it's only sometimes intentional.

It's also a structural mess. It's funny how closely Midnight Suns hews to the loop of XCOM, and while that creates an easy "one more turn" flow, the lack of the latter's time pressure makes the day-night cycle feel perfunctory. I don't have a good solution to how to get players from one bit of combat to the next (and fwiw Midnight Suns' closest contemporary, Steamworld Quest also didn't know how to do this) but what's here only sort of works.

But at the end of the day, the card combat is Good and I liked doing it. There's some really interesting edges that make every turn a game of optimization, and they've done a great job of translating each character's skillset into a fun-to-use kit. Shout-outs to kicking dudes through Magik's portals which is unbeatably sick. I got suckered into buying the most expensive version of this but I'll be glad to revisit it whenever the DLC comes out.

DLC1 Update: Honestly I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed Deadpool in this - unlike the rest of the cast he's intentionally annoying which lets the writers get away with a lot of goofy shit that would otherwise be cringe. The contrast would've worked even better if the rest of the game was played straighter but it's still pretty solid! His kit's also pretty fun as are the new enemy types.

DLC2 update: Venom's kit is sorta basic and I'm pretty sure it's OP but it's nice to be able to use him anyways. Plot for this one is pretty stupid, they don't give Eddie much of a personality, and it's a shame to not get any new enemy types this time around. Still, having an excuse to pop back into this game for a couple hours isn't the worst thing in the world.

DLC3: Took a long time for me to get through this because I simply cannot muster any enthusiasm for Morbius. It makes sense that he's here, he fits the theme of the game at large and this first batch of DLC and he was in the original comics too, but....who cares. The game even comments on the fact that him and Blade are the same kinda guy but obviously Blade is way cooler. Even his kit is basically a redo of Blade's. Also, only introducing new enemy types with the first DLC character was a mistake - I'm already tired of fighting the same vampire dudes, and it's a real oversight that they're completely segregated from mainline enemy types, which would spice things up nicely in both these DLC missions and the general ones that you still have to do in between story missions.