Marvel's Midnight Suns

I am someone who doesnt know a whole lot about Marvel but i love this game. Its got a great story great game mechanics!

Midnight Suns gives off an awful first impression.

Upon first launching the game I was getting stuttering on the main menu so I had to work out how to disable 2K's awful launcher. There's ads for the cosmetics right there on the main menu too, giving off the stench of a soulless live service slop game.

For the first few hours the game is constantly throwing tutorials at you, and once again the six different currencies and expensive crafting costs reek of a predatory monetisation design that was reworked part way through development.

But despite all this I find myself actually enjoying the game and I have trouble articulating why.

There's the ever present ludonarrative dissonance of fighting back the apocalypse while still having time for picnics and book club, so the writing never truly manages to be great; but with a voice cast this stacked the dialogue is often very enjoyable.

The combat is where the game truly shines and is really fun and addictive, so despite all the above issues I sank a lot of time into it and would love a sequel. Xavier's school would be a great setting.

I love this game and hope it ends up being successful with a long tail end like other Fireaxis games.

The hero portrayals are amazing and the persona-like social interactions are really fun. The voice acting for Nico really stood out to me but I enjoyed getting to know all of the companions. It takes a little suspension of belief when you start with Captain Marvel and she's on par with your other heroes but I enjoyed the game enough that this wasn't an issue.

The combat itself is a great mix of random cards and strategic gameplay. I don't really like the way you unlock difficulties as you progress but I had a lot of fun once I unlocked Ultimate I. I sometimes had to restart missions to solve the puzzle but I rarely felt like a mission couldn't be solved with my hero choice and card draws. I'm not sure how the game would feel to someone who doesn't love strategy games but overcoming difficult missions was extremely satisfying at higher difficulties. It's always fun when a villain shows up to ruin your day!

Exploring the grounds is fun for the story but is definitely the weakest part of the game. It has and obvious Unreal Engine-ness to it that makes exploration a little awkward. I wish I could zoom the camera farther out behind Hunter, mostly. The areas are beautiful and I love the haunted vibes but it's fairly obvious open-world exploration isn't something Fireaxis normally does. It's not a huge focus of the game but I can't help but run around gathering resources I don't actually need and I wish it was a little better optimized and designed (I occasionally get frame rate drops running around as well, which does NOT happen in combat missions).

I purchased the base game on release but just got around to restarting and finishing it. I'm still hooked so I bought the season pass for a New Game + run!

Not too complicated and quick to get into but with depth and difficulty that means not all games are auto-win

Midnight Suns is an enjoyable strategy card game

As long as you aren't expecting classic XCOM then there isn't too much to be disappointed with here. Biggest con on the game I can say is the season pass which is why I waited for a deep sale to buy. To me these dlc characters are so intricate to the main story it looks like the dev just cut them out to sell them later.

As for the list of pros
+Decent Graphics
+Good Sound Quality (such as fighting sound effects & soundtrack)
+Deep Strategy Card Game
+Character Creator & Customization
+Dialogue Choices for Main Character (Light, Dark and Neutral)
+Many hours of content (game can go on as long you want until you complete the story)
+Action paced story cut scenes
+3 Star System (which encourages better play for end mission rewards)

Now to the list of Cons
-2K Launcher (Disabling this gave me better performance)
-Season Pass (not a fan of this)
-The endless friendship grind (yeah we could have done without this)
-Dialogue Overload (everyone has something to say even when you are just standing there)
-Can't choose higher difficulties at the start
-Gacha like system for collecting cards (wish the randomness was cut way down)
-Gathering side quests (anytime the player is collecting flowers/junk instead of punching bad guys)

These are the main things that stuck out in my time playing. As for the story it's hard for me to grade as I'm not a big comic guy. I know X-Men, Spider Man and Blade for sure but some of these other characters like Caretaker or Nico I never heard of. So if you are a comic fan then you might get more out of the story than me. For me the story is just a placeholder to get to the action which there is plenty of. Overall worth playing especially if you can get the legendary edition on sale that includes all the characters and extra content.

The Marvel isn't a draw for me - though I do respect it. However this feels like an example of game that creators loved and there are so many smart things about it. Highly, highly recommend

great animations, decent writing, fun gameplay! All I could really want from this, though you'll want to circumvent the launcher and do some launch settings to downgrade from dx12 to avoid crashes.

Do not recommend, unless you really like all of the following a lot: the MCU, Marvel Comics, trading card games, the PERSONA series, and dating sims.

It's got excellent turn based combat that could hold an entire game on it's shoulders, but it's been relegated to a background activity while the game focuses on Persona-style personal relationship cutscenes. No, thanks, but having a deep emotional conversation with Captain Marvel doesn't float my boat, especially when the writing makes S8 GoT look masterful. And using a heart symbol to represent 'friendship' gave me a major ick, we can all guess why this decision was made. If they had taken the millions of dollars spent on VA, bad mo-cap, cutscenes, writing, all that, and just made a simple strategic metagame about managing superheroes, maybe this could have be another XCOM gem. Instead it's a giant waste of time.

"Game, it's been 10 minutes since I made a decision, can I go punch some more goons now or do I have to learn more about Magik's backstory for another 20 minutes?" At one point you literally HAVE to talk to someone down in their dorm room after they had a tantrum. You can either make them feel a lot better or a little better (the game's standard dialog 'choice'), but either way the whole game is locked until you have that conversation.

P.S. Oh and also it's not pay to win, even though it looks pay to win and advertises itself like a pay to win, if you buy the Legendary Edition you get everything in the game, Eclipse credits become worthless. I'm assuming this wouldn't be the case if the game was successful, it was very much built to milk wallets, but as it stands it's just another layer the confusing sandwich this game is. jic anyone wants to save themselves the hour it took me to figure this out, since no one even the devs or publisher cared to make it clear.

A fun game! I love hanging out with the characters and giving them gifts! Their battle mechanics are also very fun!

This is a hidden gem, it's a card based XCOM with an RPG overworld between missions instead of a strategy layer. There's three main casts of superheroes (midnight suns, avengers, xmen). The characters, particularly the midnight suns, are well written. It's definitely a "one more round game'. The fact I kept coming back for nearly two years is a testament to how much fun it is (~85hrs, gaming time is limited these days) . Get the DLC too - great boss fights.

Makes me sad this wasn't a commercial success - it's great.

It's a good and fun game with few caveats:
- There's a lot of dialogue. Like a lot lot. And mostly it's graphic novel, university dormitory type drama mostly. While you can skip some of it, there's still a lot.
- Has very little or nothing to do with XCOM

You can adjust the difficulty of the card game combat quite freely from a fight to fight. All the way from too easy to tough challenge, according to how confident you are with your skills.

It also has decent mystery game part in where you explore the location and find out the mystery of the location, which was surprisingly fun.

Grab the legendary edition from a steam sale and you'll get all the DLC's in a decent priced package. Definitely worth the 25 bucks.

good thing the gameplay is fun because this game has that stinky millennial writing. 7/10

Picked this up on Steam after trying it on PS5, and getting stuck (trying to play on expert difficulty without giving myself time to learn the basics properly). Huge mistake on my part.

After trying it again on Normal to start on Steam, I'm completely hooked. Wish I had spent more time giving it a proper chance the first time. Real shame we'll probably never see a sequel.

If you haven't tried it yet, and you enjoy Marvel and/or tactical combat, this game is a fantastic combination of both, with lots of customization and RPG elements to boot.

Surprisingly, it's a really good game. Even if they obviously reused things from XCOM games, its mechanics are different enough from XCOM that it feels like its own game. The story is good, the graphics are good, the different activities are pleasant enough and the difficulty is actually better tuned than XCOM imo. They managed to make the licence work well too. Unfortunately for this game, marketing didn't inspire trust (at least for me) on release but now that you can grab a bundle with all the DLCS on sale at a reasonable price, it's actually really worth it.

Very good, not great. I really enjoy the battles, and the friendship-building is neat, but a lot of the out-of-battle stuff seems a slog and can be formulaic.

Quite fun and very polished game. Definitely worth a play through.

I liked the balance between adrenaline and calmness that the game offers to players. I'm not so fan of the battle system and I think it's okay...! The comics feature is cool but not enough(need more backgrounds). The mystery around heroes is what I'm focusing in...Peter Parker ruined it from the start so no mystery for him I guess...! Rather than that, I like the new features that game developers are offering!

good blend of strategic and tactical gameplay mixed with deckbuilding elements.
it's a different style very enjoyable.

The ‘friendship simulator’ aspect has been overly expressed as a negative in reviews. That review angle is giving a good game a poor impression. Improving the heroes does involve raising their level of friendship with the player’s hero (“The Hunter”). Instead of chopping down trees and breaking rocks with a pickaxe, then refining the raw materials, then crafting improvements, you instead have conversations with the other heroes. Ever read a comic? In-between the fights the heroes talk to each other. The friendship building is a different take on typical resource gathering. The various dialogs involved are entertaining. Good. Not great, but good.

It is not XCOM like. That is like saying any game that has tough melee fights is ‘souls like’. The combat is turn-base card deck building. The hero powers are cards. Each hero has a character themed set of cards. You acquire cards for each hero and assign/change a set of 8 active cards for each hero from their specific set. Most fights combine 3 hero’s set of 8 active cards into the deck used for that fight. Cards are randomly drawn from that combined deck throughout that fight. Each card does a specific thing. Never a random chance to hit or miss. Never a random amount of damage. No ‘action point’ choice of move or attack. 3 card plays and 1 move per combat turn done in any order. The only randomness is the drawing of cards.

Good story line, great upgrade system, and fantastic gameplay. Far more in-depth than any other Marvel game I've played.

genuinely enjoyed the story for what it was. loved learning more about these characters and seeing how much they can relate to each other. overall, i would say the biggest negative is the actual game itself. The free roam bits felt clunky at times, but never enough to distract me from what i was invested in.

Mechanically, it plays like a game that was initially intended as a free-to-play mobile game before pivoting into what it is now (gacha mechanics on several fronts, lots of gameplay elements that almost seem suspiciously lined up to be perfect for time-gating, a multitude of currencies that need to be grinded, etc). The graphics are also extremely okay.

But overall, it's a really fun game at the discounted $25 for all content. Slay the Spire card battling with the added dimension of managing the positioning of your heroes relative to enemies and the environment. Would've been disappointed if I had paid full price for this though.

Corny dialogues. Endless time running after activities like collecting paintings and journal entires. A myriad of cutscenes... but the combat system is cool if you like superheroes, the tone of the game keeps you wanting to play - so why not grab it while on discount.

single player tactical game with marvel characters, what could go wrong?
Looks like everything.
I"ve spent 9h in the game, tutorial ended somewhere 3h in.
this is not a tactics focused game this is story-driven narrative dating sim with tactical elements and hero progression.
CARDS system is not the worst thing about the game, the worst part is the management and constant walking back and forth to collect resources and speak more with heroes.
After near perfect XCOM2 seeing THIS... dating sim with tactics is a shame.
And this single player game has paid skins! - ouch.
Let's see if the game story will redeem itself, so far it is below average and at this point i want to skip every dialogue except the pre-rendered cutscenes.
Don't buy it on a full price only 75% off or more.
NOT RECOMMENDED for XCOM2 fans.
Don't understand why is it very positive...

It's just fun running around with different Marvel characters. The story is interesting as well. I'm enjoying exploring the grounds and uncovering secrets

How did I not play this earlier? Bought the game on sale and loved it. Great tactical combat with great graphics and animations that make you feel like a super hero. There is a lot of variety in characters, abilities, enemies and environmental effects to keep things interesting. The card mechanics for abilites work great but I wouldn't compare this to other card games such as Slay the Spire etc. it is more similar to things like Firaxis previous game XCOM with a touch of deckbuilding. The story and characters are great as well if you take it for what it its; a cheesy comic book style super hero story. 10/10

I thought this game was amazing. The only complaint(s) I would have are the NG+ giving me all the heroes right off, making it odd story-wise and the feeling of urgency for the main story. A little odd to chill and hang out with a hero buddy when the WORLD IS ENDING, right?

But the gameplay, for me, was wonderful. I liked the card based combat aspect. I loved roaming around the Abby doing hangouts and finding secret stuff. I'd love for a sequel or another game of this style, like X-Men or Fantastic 4.

i would actually give this game a yes/no. depends on what you want from this game. what surprised me was the amount of relationship building this game has. you spend the majority of your time running around hogwarts having social interactions with the other characters. this includes going to "emo kids" club meetings (which is plot relevant) and watching movies (which builds friendship and thus team bonuses). the actual fighting is only about a third of the game. was not expecting this game to be so sims like. and you can only go on one mission per day, then you have to sleep to do another mission. and a mission isn't really a mission at all. it's just a square area with some enemies to fight, and maybe an artifact to gather... then back to hogwarts for more talking and bonding. the saving grace in this game is the dialog. at least the conversations are personalities are entertaining enough, and they need to be, as that is the bulk of this game. if you want to pretend to be a superhero and have friendships with other super heroes... this game is for you. If you want intense and frequent turn-based combat and strategy beyond "throw this guy into this other guy"... maybe look elsewhere.

Very enjoyable superhero strategy game. Build and upgrade your deck of abilities to randomly pull, and execute them any way you want. Not to be confused with games like Hearthstone, as the environment, allies, and multiple enemies makes the gameplay good in comparison(coming from a person that does not enjoy Hearthstone).
The exploration was interesting, but progressive unlocking of the environment left me desiring a way to mark blocked points of interest on a map for later. The map can be a maze, since you are unable to divert between many pathways.
The story was fun.
The character interactions and dialogue were great.

Fair warning, I encountered one major game breaking bug, so make a save at least once per game day to prevent replaying too much if encountered. I believe it was the second to last story mission, if you have advanced the story too quickly at the end, and talk with everyone each day, you can trigger a dialogue interaction too soon, causing two events to overlap, and prevent the the last mission from ever appearing. If encountered, as other forums have reported, use a previous save and delay talking with certain people(or everyone) for a day, then continue as normal. Official game support was far less than helpful in resolving this issue.

Fun but simple and repetitive game play loop. Story is absolute garbage though. Imagine a really long episode of the show Charmed from the early 2000's but with an even cheesier, soap opera style drama and a total lack of self awareness. Can only recommend if its on sale and you REALLY love Marvel and turn based strategy. Kudos for getting Steve Blum to voice Wolverine though.

Another X-com type games, if I would explain its a mix between strategy turn based and deckbuilding game, literally nailed it with the dozen of characters, each character have their own gimmicks and role, so everyone is useful, the story kinda mid along with the side story and character interaction, luckily the combat gameplay covered those lacking narrative, giving the player couple of enjoyment repeating the same map while testing other characters build. I even sometimes visit this game, played 2 till 3 mission and call it a day, and i haven't had enough trying everyone builds,

Very unique combat system that is still fun. Don't be afraid of the cards, this isn't a deck-building game like you're used to, it's a unique twist on tactical, x-com style combat that feels fresh to me. Also, a lot of the writing and the story is pretty good. Very enjoyable game.

Its so much fun and very chill, great cinematics good story and the card thing is kinda cool for a change. i also enjoy the friendship building part of the game and the characters revealing more and more about them. very cool.

This game is amazing. If your a comic book fan even better.
Banter between characters is great. Dam how I miss it.
Combat system is a little easy, but then again I was only on normal.
I love all the exploration and the story. Voice acting is ok, but the writing is closer to comics than not.
Got a little long in the end and I ran out of "extra" things to do.

All in all a great game. Will play it again in 2 years time because it will scratch my hero itch.

This game had a little rocky start, but it quickly became great. It's very sad Fireaxis seems to have abandoned development on it since it would really use some balance pass and it definitely lacks a proper endgame.
But the story is there, and it's great, and the combat system is very good. Both will keep you hooked for a hundred hours if you want to go deep and learn everything.
I think that right now this is one of the best Marvel Games on Steam!!

I truly respect the Publishers, developers and the 3rd parties of this game, plus the Brilliant Credits. I obey them, specially the GM of this game.

Game won't launch. Tried every solution available and following every guidelines by the community, still won't launch.
This is the first game I bought that made it really hard to play the game.
Now I've wasted time trying to solve retarded 2k launcher issues and stuff that should've been addressed by the devs.
Shame.

Very fun experience. The swapping between combat and exploring the abby is a bit of a lurch at first, but once you're used to it there's a lot to enjoy here.

Great story with characters that rival or surpass the MCU. The gameplay design can get repetitive since the game was originally a live service, but the story is worth pushing through for.

Fantastic game. Immersive in the way that you're seeking a Marvel game to be and strategic in the manner that you want from an Xcom game.

Definitely the best Marvel game I ever played, there is so much content so much interaction, I waited 4 years to have the computer to be able to run it, and now that I finally do, i'm living my best life :heart:

Fun game to play, but only buy on a deep sale. I spent as much time button mashing to get through the insipid social interactions as I did playing the actual game, but it was still fun for the $10 I spent on it.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a mixed experience, as the strategy gameplay is great, but just about everything else is difficult to enjoy. I don't recommend it, but there are a few positives. The game is a cool mix between a turn-based strategy game, and a deckbuilder. Each hero has a deck of abilities, and during combat each turn you can play three cards, move a hero, and do environmental attacks. Cards cost heroism, which can be gained by using some lower cost cards, and defeating enemies with a "quick" attack refunds you a card play, allowing for more than three actions in a turn. The system gets a bit more complex than that, and the environmental attacks add a nice layer of depth on top of everything. This leads to some awesome combat scenarios, and many of the heroes attacks feel genuine to their character and have dope animations.

That being said, the social sim aspect of this game is horrible. While the main story is alright, after and before missions you go to a hub world where you engage with the heroes in a Persona or Fire Emblem: Three Houses type of way. The writing here is absolutely atrocious; these heroes with storied lore are essentially all written like teenagers unable to properly communicate with each other, and lacking understanding of who they are. Just to give a brief example or two, at night I was invited to the "Emo Kids" club by Nico, Magik, and Dr. Strange, while Blade invited me to a book club with Captain America and Captain Marvel because he's romantically interested in Captain Marvel and wants to get closer to her. These scenarios aren't written in a way that are goofy or enjoyable either, they're just bad. To make matters worse, there are so many of them that even if you skip all of them for the entire main game, this will still be about 20-30% of your playtime, in large part because raising your friendship level with heroes unlocks new passives for them, and improves their capabilities in combat.

Writing complaints aside, I am baffled by how anti-player much of the game design is. For example, want to craft items that help you in combat? You'll be running around the boring hub world pressing "E" on mushrooms and flowers after you're done flirting with your companions post-mission. Want to upgrade an attack in your deck to help you beat the next story mission? Well, unfortunately you don't have enough "heroic essence" to do the upgrade, so you're going to need to grind a few general missions before doing that (there are four or five different currencies that prevent you from becoming stronger in this same way/force you to grind for them). Okay, so you're not into the grind, want to mainline the game's story? Unfortunately you need to complete a general mission before you can do the next mission, try again tomorrow! Hey, welcome back, it's tomorrow, want to do that mission now? Well sadly this main story mission requires you bring Wolverine and Blade with you, and during yesterday's mission both heroes sustained injuries, so Blade will start with 50% HP, and Wolverine will do 50% damage for the first three turns, oh and every other time both heroes draw a card it will be an unplayable "injury" card that does nothing: good luck winning! Oh I forgot to mention, both heroes will be healed in three days time, so instead of failing the mission repeatedly because they're injured, why don't you do another three general missions followed by three days and three nights of bad social sim while they heal?

The game also lacks standard strategy quality of life features, like a fast forward during enemy movement- this gets really annoying with a particular enemy that duplicates itself leading to enemy turns that were, at times, two or three minutes long, with no way to fast forward or skip.

Overall, I think I would've had more fun with Marvel's Midnight Suns if it was just the gameplay followed by a mobile-game-style screen where you upgrade your heroes with one currency, and are able to use who you want, when you want. The gameplay is awesome, but everything else ranges from mediocre to terrible. Even if you're a massive Marvel fan, I don't think you'll like this because these renditions of many of the characters are so poor and childish; meanwhile, if you're a strategy fan there are countless better games to check out.

Not Recommended

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You can pet the dog.
Edit: You can also pet the cat

In my search to find games that play like Fire Emblem, I guess this sort of does. I do enjoy the fights and cards mechanic, but I do think the cut scenes really slow everything down with how frequent. I'm not against a story, but so far there hasn't been a good balance of cut scenes to actual gameplay. I hope that changes later, but we'll see. The characters also look a bit weird when talking to them, but I forgive that part because I like my computer to actually run the game instead of have insanely good graphics. Overall, I do like it so far.

I got it when it was on sale and I would recommend waiting for it since $60 is a lot.

It's criminal this game didn't draw more attention on release -- hidden gem worth every penny

I rarely do this, but I played through this game two times. And even got 100% achievements.
For what it's worth - thank you Firaxis Games for making a splendid game!

An incredibly overlooked and underrated gem.

I'll never understand why Midnight Suns didn't get more love critically. Commercially, yes, the marketing was really, really poor, but the actual game itself is incredible most of the time. A mix of the heart and cheese of a JRPG with the tactical satisfaction of a deckbuilder, both elements shine so long as you go in knowing what to expect.

The cast is written with comic book silliness and heart, and the social sim elements in deepening your friendship with them are very well implemented; I only wish there were more opportunities for the group as a whole to interact, instead of what are by and large isolated incidents with your player character. Likewise, the combat in the game is always immensely satisfying, but lacks just a few brushstrokes of variety and progression to reach an exalted tier.

It's very possible that instead of Midnight Suns being some legendarily overlooked classic, I just happen to be the perfect target audience for it. While I enjoy XCOM, I'm just not good enough- and too much of a perfectionist- to reliably clear it. And JRPGs, as much as I love them, often rely on similar tropes that Midnight Suns avoids by dosing it up with western flavor. The mix of the two is wonderfully compelling, as evidenced by my playtime, and the fact that it took me just this long to finally beat it. There are flaws, but the game never once stops shining. I'm incredibly grateful, and no small bit amazed, that it got made.

Marvel's Midnight Suns is a light tactical card game featuring Marvel heroes, a light friendship simulator, and light exploration game. Players will take the role of 'The Hunter', an original character to the Marvel Universe, as they try to save the world from demons. Along the road, they'll recruit a number of Marvel heroes as they rebuild a team known as 'The Midnight Suns'.

This game is a bit of a mixed bag for me. I do enjoy a lot of the genre's it's pulling from, but I feel like the overall experience is mixed because it tries to do too much. Throughout the game, you get to fight enemies, make friends with the Marvel heroes, or explore the abbey, each experience featuring a different gameplay style. Each of the systems do work, and rewards for participating in one benefits the other gameplay aspects, however each gameplay style on their own feels like a simplified version of their respective genre.

For the Tactical side, I enjoy the card system, but I found the positioning aspect of heroes a bit strange, as the attacks would automatically choose where I landed. A bigger problem was that I was able to attack any enemy from any point of the arena. This made the combat feel "flattened" in a way as I had characters zipping throughout the battlefield to dispatch enemies quickly. Aside from that, this is definitely the highlight of the game for myself, as I enjoyed trying to beat the levels in as few turns as possible.

On the friendship side, I felt like the writing in place both expected the player to know these characters to an extent (there are easter eggs thrown throughout the dialogue); but the reward was mostly learning more about their backstory and their point of view. The writing is a bit variable in quality (might be a bit corny for some) but it gets the job done.

Finally, exploring the abbey will give you mysteries to solve, ingredients to collect for crafting, and cosmetic prizes (earned through opening the treasure chests scattered throughout the map). The map opens up a bit more as you explore and earn abilities to open more pathways. This portion of the game was fine, but the Abbey feels mostly empty the further out you go, as characters would mostly cluster around one spot.

Ultimately, Marvel's Midnight Suns is a game that tries to do many things, and is okay at most of it. In the end, if you're looking for a lighter tactical game and are a fan of Marvel, I do recommend this experience.

Quite possibly the weirdest AAA game i've played. Would you like to take Wolverine on a date, talk about your feelings, and give him aged Canadian rootbeer after which you and him go and try to kill your mother? BOY do i have a game for you!
Genuinely do recommend if you willing to some burn time, the pacing is slow but i did like the story and the combat is really engaging

It took me a little while to get into this game, but once i realized the depth of the strategy involved i was hooked.