I tend to not like writing negative reviews, I just move on. But I feel like I have to with this one.

First, the good things. The card / gameplay loop is great. Reminds me a lot of Inscryption where the game encourages you to "break the game" and make overpowered combinations. Classic case of the gamers TM freaking out of cards and deck building as some boogie man (but didn't complain about the dollar store looking Avengers????). When funnily enough, the card and deck building is actually the best part of the game and most redeemable part of the game. The level scaling is really nice because normal offers a great challenge but beyond that really pushes your knowledge of the game. The choice of characters is neat, brings to light some lesser known Marvel characters. And the Midnight Suns armor in particular is up there as top tier design for super hero suits.

OK that's all the positives I can say. Everything about the game is mediocre to dreadful. The story, and writing is so shallow, and actually non-sense (but the understandable kind). It does nothing to actually hook you into caring about the stakes provided or its characters. The whole "what if Marvel is a turn based RPG" just does not really work. Got someone like Captain Marvel that's effectively a God limited to at times...a single punch.... I was sold on the game by people claiming "oh its like Fire Emblem but with Marvel!"...But they failed to be precise that the game ACTUALLY takes from the WORST parts of the modern Fire Emblem. More specifically Three Houses' hub and support conversations nonsense. And not the best parts AKA map design and gameplay in older Fire Emblem games. And these said support conversations in Midnight Suns feel even WORSE than Fire Emblem because they are behind very lengthy and arbitrary time gates that can be easily modded out. The support conversations are also pretty bad too. It's almost the same copy and pasted script of how a Marvel hero tells their woes and the Hunter saved them and they are friends now! Oh and I cannot forget about the Hunter. The AAA industry continues down the trend of these lifeless, and boring custom avatars. And this game stands among the ranks as another game where the main protagonist is a soulless husk with little personality, no emotion, has amnesia and will be the savior of the world. It's boring, its B O R I N G. Was the game truly better off with a husk of a character like the Hunter instead of the main character being Blade? Nico? Magick? Literally anyone else?

The game is also filled with tons of currency that does not reward the player in any sort of fair quantity. I had to mod in infinite quantities of all the currency roughly 75% through the game because I felt like I would actually have a bit more fun that way (i did). Feels like some of the currencies were secretly at one point considered to be monetized for real money. There are also in-game only lootboxes for cards which makes me incredibly suspicious what 2K was envisioning this game to be early in development...another GAAS at one point? And speaking of 2K, don't get me started on the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 2K launcher. I have never dealt with something like this before. When I first started playing this game, load times were atrocious, textures wouldn't load in and the game was stuttering like crazy. I saw on Google that a solution was to disable the 2K launcher in startup settings, and lo and behold, everything got fixed. Amazing stuff 2K. "but its just another launcher, what's the big deal!"

What an embarrassment this game turned out to be. Im geunine suprised they thought this will be a great idea. I will no be completely harsh on it cause the story and main evil figure started very interesting. Also some of your companions that you team up with are interesting and fun combat partners. What kills this game is execution. I wished I could have patient for what came later but I don’t have patient for stupid gameplay designs.
The main issue I have that the combat cards that you draw to end your enemies and complete a mission are so random and straight up rng killers. Sometimes you just don’t have strength or stamina to execute end goal just cause of a random drop. While you think that’s a not a big of a deal but it is. It literally kills fun factor of a game especially if it evolves around time ticking missions where you have to end everything in 4 moves. This is straight up cancer combo of a gameplay design have a silly rng that is not in your favor and ticking time bomb. Oh and don’t forget that some of your characters card moves cant do damage to main target that you have to kill in 4 moves just because “reason”. Lets not forget too that they constantly showering you every move with new upcoming enemy waves. This is one of most destructive gameplay mechanics I’ve encountered in games. I played x com franchise and when you think about it missing that shot with 99% when you stand near enemy face isn’t that bad compared to this horror.

Even for a developer that makes very long-form repetitive and cyclical games usually, I am WILDLY impressed that they squashed every bug and made such a tight, rewarding experience. I really am enjoying this. :D

Crying and throwing up because this wonderful game is probably never going to get a sequel?!
It combined so many of my favorite game mechanics (turn-based combat, card-based combat, dating sims, or, in this case, friendship sims, so much exploration and so many cool little collectibles) and became the game I didn’t know I needed, but the things I loved about it seemed to ultimately turn people off from playing it, so it flopped. For me though? One of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had.
Not only do I enjoy the game mechanics, but getting to know and befriend each character was such a joy because of the writing and voice acting. Like BioWare levels of getting to know and befriend my teammates. I even really grew to love the player character and am quite attached to them, when a lot of the time a custom character is kind of just a vessel for my shenanigans. I genuinely am as fond of them as any of the canonical Marvel characters. Really appreciated how the characters weren’t gendered either and you were just given the option of which body type you wanted (femme and masc Hunter do have different voice actors, if that influences your decision any) and you’re able to have facial hair as the femme version of Hunter.
After spending 81.9 hours playing this game almost nonstop, it’s safe to say I really love it and I’ll be coming back for more. It’s not perfect, but it’s everything I didn’t know I needed together in one video game.
Genuinely if you love any of those game mechanics and are as big a Marvel nerd as I am, you should play this game.

This game deserves more praise. We need more games like it for marvel. Reminds me of Ultimate Alliance a bit.

Just one amazing game for anyone but a must have for marvel fan's in my opinion

I should love this game, I enjoy marvel and xcom, but unfortunately I am finding this a painful experience. First, not a fan of the card based combat system. All combat takes place within small boxes, there are no cover points everyone just kind of stands in the open and takes direct hits for some reason. The enemies are mostly generic copies unless a fight includes a villain, and if you are wondering why a random hydra clone can take a punch from captain marvel, I think they have Lilith plot armor powers. In your small combat boxes there are parts of the environment you can interact with if you want to throw Venom into generator or have blade throw a stack of newspapers at a hydra agent.

Firaxis has changed key plot points and motivations from the comic story and of course it is not as good. The weirdest choice is that instead of playing as one of the many great marvel characters, I am forced to play as generic Hunter girl or guy. The bulk of the game is spent walking around your base talking with the other heroes which would be great, but the writing is terrible and all of the heroes speak like 13-year-olds. Seeing the heroes basically tweet to each other on Spark is so cringe and embarrassing.

I am enjoying leveling up my team, customizing them and assembling them for battle. I suppose that is something. Unfortunately the story missions basically lock down what heroes you can use so it doesn't really matter. Also the enemies automatically scale with your level, so you never feel like your team is becoming more powerful.

Great game

The gameplay aspect is fun, but the downtime aspect is not in my opinion. The game is a cross between a turn base card battler and a romance management simulator. I bought the game for the turn based card battler aspect. I quickly got bored of the romance/friend management aspect of it which you do outside of battles. Also you have to play for 20+ hours to get access to Wolverine. And Deadpool is paywalled behind DLC. Since my last play time, due to some patch I am unable to play the game without it crashing at load screens.

Great deckbuilder/xcom type mechanics. Good representation of the characters with their comicbook canon/lore intact (not the typical rewrites of everything to make the modern MCU all rainbows and unicorns.) Gameplay is a bit repetitive if you're grinding levels instead of challenging "hard" missions, but it's still fun.

Only downside is the prices of the DLCs. I get that they have character storylines and unique interactions, but who honestly wants to buy 29 "custom skins" and 4 characters for $50?!? I'll be waiting until it goes on sale or until I can grab the season pass on a key reseller.