Marvel's Midnight Suns

Game of 2022. great gameplay with even better out-of-combat elements.

Dude this game would've skyrocketed if it wasn't for some questionable design choices and questionable marketing. I love the game but the weird middle-school "drama" and increasing friend levels (weird hangouts and trying to please people) was awkward. I'm all for cheesy comic book dialogue from the golden era but let's be real, I really wish it was darker in tone. It's "dark" in the sense that it has that late 90s-early 2000s edgy angst. It's like watching Blade but they took out the cursing and blood.

Let's be real, people were expecting Xcom with Marvel characters. Straight up, bringing in Marvel characters on a tactical map and playing a polished version of Freedom Force mixed with turn-based action and stellar graphics. It's definitely unique and works with what it's got, I almost wish it played like a rogue-lite. And dude, we should've gotten some more obscure characters but I know that doesn't pull in the masses.

That's it for my gripes. This game is addicting and we're kinda strapped for good superhero games, especially ones that let you control a squad of your favorites. Aside from the "hub" slowing down the action, I really love it. Graphics are slick, superheroes can feel powerful if you build the right deck, and though we still have the Avengers in it, it's not just about them and we get to play with characters who deserve a bit more spotlight. Despite what I feel about the tone of the story, I still think it's pretty solid for a superhero game. Throwing some goon into an explosion to wreck other badguys and then slamming down with some crazy AOE attack you've been saving your points for is insanely satisfying. Also, it has Ghost Rider. That was enough to make me buy it right there.

If you picked it up for PC, seriously look into modding as there are some tweaks out there that make the game feel more streamlined.

I'm not a Marvel-phile, although I have a little familiarity. This hit a nice sweet spot of being a good game, with a decent amount of story, and some exploration aspects to balance the repetitiveness of the combat missions. I learned about some Marvel characters I hadn't heard of. The deck-building side was good, and mostly well-balanced. It was just the right length.

I would buy a sequel, which is about the best recommendation I can give for a game.

Great game because it’s a unique concept. There were some rough edges but overall the novelty matches the games length and is worth playing if you are a marvel fan. Surprisingly good voice acting!

The combat is also pretty unique and does not rip off from any game that I know of.

Amazing game for me. Great story, fantastic gameplay. Easy to learn, casual enough (if you want it to be). A little bit too much conversations, but it would've been a shame to skip them on the 1st playthrough.

I completed Midnight Suns on a normal playthrough. I’ve logged about 90 hours and earned a bit more than 80% of the achievements, which includes some DLC achievements. I have finished both the main story and the DLC story. I enjoyed the game or I would not have spent the time I did and I wouldn’t have finished the game. I say that because, some aspects of my review may read as negative. Overall, I probably give this game a 7 out of 10.

Midnight Suns is set an alternative universe from the main Marvel universe or the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Were this either of those timelines, at least one of the NPC heroes would be a member of a group she is not listed as a member in. The story addresses occult issues and pulls in a number of obscure heroes such as Mobius and villains such as Sin or Dr. Faustus. Key members of the Avengers and X-Men appear alongside a number of traditionally solo heroes.

The story revolves around the player’s avatar, a previously unheard-of hero known only as “the Hunter.” The Hunter’s story involves death and rebirth, immortality, family struggles and elder gods. Overall, it’s a pretty good story, capturing the feel of a Marvel cartoon. The voice acting is quite good with some well-known, and recognizable, talent making up the cast.

Combat
The combat in this game uses a turn-based, deck building system. Each hero has a configurable deck of eight cards. Typically, three heroes go on any mission, meaning the player has a deck of 24-cards to draw from. Each turn the player draws a hand of cards and receives three card-play actions.

Some cards build up energy, some use up accumulated energy. Some cards are free to play and do not use up a card action and some are free to play if certain conditions are met. Accumulated energy may be used for more powerful cards or used to interact with the battle arena. The choices in how to best use the three card-actions and when to burn power on big cards or environmental effects kept combat interesting throughout the game.

Each hero feels unique. The cards available to them evoke the powers and abilities present in the comics, cartoons, and movies. I really enjoyed the card play of Captain America and I found Spider-Man’s ability to interact with the battle arena to be particularly fun. Some heroes, like Blade and Venom, turned out to be surprisingly effective. A few heroes were a bit lackluster, I never got past thinking of Mobius as “lesser Blade.” But even the more lackluster ones were still fun to play.

Ultimately, I enjoyed this game in spite of the combat, not because of it. While there was nothing “wrong” with the combat, I could not shake wishing this used a more traditional turn-based, action-point model. I believe other reviews list a wish that this game played “more like X-Com,” and I agree even though I enjoyed the combat.

Building the Perfect Base
Between missions the player can work on developing the hero base, exploring the base environment, or reviewing upcoming missions. During base building, the player gets opportunities to add new cards to their heroes’ decks, customize existing cards somewhat, and build resources which affect future missions.
The card gaining mechanic, card crafting mechanic, and card improving mechanic provide a pretty interesting amount of flexibility. The UI for these decisions is very good, it was always pretty obvious how to do the thing I wanted to do.

Base upgrades affect your heroes’ options in future missions. One improvement allows interrogating enemies during missions. Other upgrades modify and enhance the movement options during combat, enabling shoving and other interesting combat choices.

There are a number of currencies in play, so many so that it feels like this was heading towards being a mobile game. There are three different hero currencies uses in upgrading abilities, credits used to purchase base upgrades, intel used for side-missions, and gloss used to buy cosmetics. I didn’t really see any benefit from having so many types of currencies and often it felt like the game was nudging me towards busy work to “get a few more orange currencies, and then a credit, oh but first I need to get an artifact…”

Exploring the Abbey
The player’s base exists in a pocket dimension called the Abbey. The Abbey starts off with only a few areas explorable but this greatly expands through mission unlocks and player exploration. The Abbey has a number of easy puzzles and a plethora of lockboxes, another mobile game staple. I unlocked lockboxes as I worked through story exploration, but about halfway through my playthrough I just ignored boxes for the remainder of the game.

You also get opportunities to interact with the heroes that make up the Midnight Suns. A lot of this involves cutscenes which might be familiar to people who enjoy games like the Fire Emblem series. Many of the heroes are well-written. The banter between Iron-Man and Dr. Strange was quite enjoyable. I also liked my interactions with Eddie Brock (Venom), Blade, and Captain Marvel.

The NPC interaction is usually pretty well-written, but some of it really is a bit cringeworthy. The NPC’s seem to have an almost pathological need to be the “best friend” of the main character and this really undermines some of the heroes. I dreaded talking to Captain America. I know Steve Rogers is going to be kind of “out of touch” in his responses and that’s part of his charm, but Marvel Suns’ Captain America fawns over the player in a way that really takes away from the awe and shucks that makes Captain America who he is. Dr. Strange is another whose emotional arc really veers away from what makes the comic book character engaging.

One exceptional callout though is one of my favorite B-list Marvel heroes, Magik. I enjoyed those interactions and didn’t really mind the “becoming friends” part since it really just meant that I didn’t ‘quite’ irritate her as much as other people did. Magik’s backstory involves some significant tragedy and I think they captured the pathos of that pretty well.

My other dislike with the writing is that people don’t talk the way the Midnight Suns talk. Therapists and Counselors talk that way, but normal people do not. The Hunter, a reincarnated 600-year-old Monster Killer frequently comes across using terms straight out of a Psych 101 textbook. It’s kind of jarring listening to a character whose backstory involves hobbies “most of which aren’t even legal anymore” wax large about emotional balance and personal space. The relation building dialog really took me out of the story, to the point where I had to weigh the mechanical value of increasing a friendship rank with the cringe of the cutscene needed to get there.

Closing Thoughts
Its obvious that Firaxis wanted this game to start a franchise. It’s pretty evident that won’t happen and its sad. I suspect that the choice of the card-battler system made this a failure to launch franchise. It’s not a bad card battler, but I can’t help but wonder what this would have been in an action-point, turn-based game… without the Psych 101 friendship simulator! There are a lot of hits, but some decent misses in this one.

Solid game!

The exploration of the home base feels underwhelming, and the enemies could benefit from more variety.

That said, the graphics are satisfying, and the gameplay system innovates just enough to feel fresh. I recommend starting on hard difficulty to avoid the game feeling too easy or dull.

An extremely fun game that tries just one too many things. The gameplay, story, and characters are all fantastic, but the uninspired hub world is more or less meaningless - fortunately, it is mostly optional as well, and there is no need to engage with it in any significant way. I highly recommend this game to any Marvel fan.

Game has weird RNG based difficulty. One try you might get all the best cards early on which keeps your heroic level high, the next you only get "pull more card" abilities and then can't take actions for the next three turns while your team gets destroyed.

Insane amount of "cut scenes" that are extremely dialogue heavy with no real outcome. The game has promise but it gets in its own way A LOT and can be very frustrating. Uninstalled.

I'll admit the friendship mechanics are strange, and the card system seems like an odd choice, but this is a VERY fun game. If it's on sale, grab it along with the season pass to get every hero.

The heroes are realised exceptionally well in combat, and the card/deck system is inspired, but the combat is let down my nonexistent level design, a lack of impactful or interesting enemies, and objectives that are rarely exciting to engage with.

And the less said about the dialogue the better. You would do yourself a massive favour by just skipping as much of it as you can, else you could easily double the length of your playthrough with useless conversations that are seemingly endless in their abundance.

There is definitely a gem buried somewhere in here. I wish I liked it more.

Fantastic strategy combat game hidden deep behind one of the best written and most obnoxious dating simulators I've ever played.

I recommend it as a game to play around with and just appreciate how these character's interact. However, it's not a "diamond in the rough". It's a piece of copper at best. Nevertheless, copper still has value and I am willing to buy it.

Marvel Midnight Suns really could be a good "OC-insert hero into Marvel Universe" game if only it was polished better. It still suffers from making the main character a "very important figure" and his/her backstory and personality is a combination of everyone else. And it's so weird to see everyone talks to him like he's their best friend since childhood. But at the very least, it looks like they genuinely tried. Banters were nice and the gameplay is serviceable. I just think it really could be better. In the future, I wish more Marvel single-player games are like this.

A very underrated game.

First, yes, this is not XCOM 3 and I don't mind at all. The game is simpler in some ways, but that's part of its charm. It’s also endless—while you can complete the main story, you can continue playing and leveling up if you wish. You can even level up your friends (though not the Hulk). Yes, it's a turn-based game. Yes, you need to plan ahead. Yes, it's mostly scripted. And yes, there’s a 3D walkable map that you can explore for some bonuses. Also, yes, it’s Marvel, and I love Marvel.

Now that you know what it is, is it good? Oh yeah, it’s good. The story, the quests, and the interactions with the heroes are all fun. Every hero has their own problems, and you, on the other hand, can be the neutral, good, or bad guy—it's up to you. The story starts off slow, and you’ll have to do a lot of side missions at first, but you’ll get the hang of it and can clear them easily later on. The game picks up pace, especially near the end, but I won’t spoil that. Some heroes, like Nico or Doctor Strange, can be a bit confusing at first, but you’ll learn to use them effectively. Be aware, though, that this is a fun game where you can adjust the difficulty on the fly if it gets too hard.

Yes, I’ve played for 90 days and still haven’t finished it. There’s a lot to do, and I’ve completed most of it. The map is 100% done for me—no secrets left. All the items are unlocked so far. I also bought the Season 1 DLC, and I was pleasantly surprised—it was fun and added a lot of new heroes and legendary outfits.


Pros:

Fun interactions
Fun story (simple but fair)
Open map where you can walk around in a turn-based game, with lots of secrets
No unnecessary DEI or LGBTQ+ content in the game
The game offers plenty of challenges and combo setups between all the heroes


Cons:

It’s not XCOM, but it’s still good
Sometimes it feels repetitive, because it can be
There are too many loading screens between missions
You need to choose whether to go “dark” or “good” with certain heroes to get the best effects from them, so you’ll need to balance your decisions or play good at the start and bad at the end to maximize bonuses

I love the combat and the deck building aspects of this game, but I keep having to put it down because I can only struggle through one or two iterations of the combat -> explore -> socializing loop. It's extremely cringe and honestly boring. If they took the combat and deck building systems and streamlined the storytelling to cutscenes and xcom style base management this would be a million times better. Don't make me spend 20 to 30 minutes running around a mansion, hunting for resources and hot-tubbing with Tony Stark.

TLDR; Game would be much more tolerable without the inane "exploration" and team socialization aspects.

Combats are OK (even good if you like this type of tactic), but everything between them is boring, and the worst part is - combats take just half of game time.

I love this game. If you like turn-based and Marvel games, you will love this game. Graphics are awesome and the story is pretty good. Highly recommended.

One of my favorite games I've played, and finished and recent years.

Lets be clear, it is a super hero, campy writing, game. 7/10 for story.

Game play is incredible fun and well put together. Almost 20 characters to play and all written well to original designs.

Highly, Highly recommend picking up with DLC if you can.

The characters are unbearable. Were they just bland, I might have been able to cope with it, in favor of the better parts of the experience, but they are actively grating, incessantly regurgitating that desperate cartoonish wit, so characteristic of current superhero media. It is one thing to have to speak with these intolerable caricatures, but it is quite worse to be forced to interact with them at every junction, just so that you can drive the forgettable story like a slaving mule, and grind the unengaging mid and macro-level mechanics, as you run endless laps around Hogwarts lite.

The game could easily have just been the missions and a menu screen to select them in-between, with two-to-three quippy lines of dialogue thrown in between every foray, and it would have been much better for it. It is sad how much work has gone into this, and still more so, when we see how counterproductive it has been.

I bought this title, as I was curious to see the game design decisions that went into creating a turn-based combat system that leverages the variance of cards, rather than dice or pure percentages. Alas, the design decisions that made the most impression on me, have shown a cautionary tale. Something went wrong in the direction of this game and much effort was wasted to feed the tone-deaf beast of endless self-reference.

Fishing with Blade, Picking Flowers with Wolverine - and a really fun X-COM-lite system
5/5

I really enjoyed this game. It's like a mix between X-COM and a card game, but the stronger focus is on the card play. The movement on the map is mainly for positioning and lining up enemies for knockback effects.
The animations are very satisfying in their superheroic style.
In contrast to some other players, I really enjoyed the time between missions interacting with the other heroes. The exploration of the Abbey grounds was ok but didn't interest me that much.
The storytelling is really fun in a comic book way and the DLC characters and their story lines were enjoyable as well.

Neat game but what is that camera? Why is it restricted to being so zoomed in, why can't you toggle the tactical info view, why can't we disable it jumping around at every little action? Why can't we zoom in/out with the scroll wheel? These have been requested features for years now as far as I can see.
Many questions, much refund.

pretty addictive gameplay loop. a bit too much talky-talky, not enough fighty-fighty, but you could probably do less of that if you're less compulsive than I am about maxing out passive abilities and such.

When you're in a mission its great, game play is satisfying and overall a very smooth experience. Outside of the action, you're forced into a relationship sim; along with some of the seemingly irrelevant fluff going into some missions and coming out of them, it can pretty tedious.

If you can bare this, the actual game play, card system and character progression system is fun. I've finished the game and played around with new game+ a bit, but i cant see myself putting in any more time than 60 hours.

If you can get it on sale for 85% off, this game is an absolute steal and definitely worth it.

Not for me. The card system is not at all fun to me and there is no character development. A mile wide and an inch deep.

idk what to say really. i have tried to get into this game 4 times now and i just can't. which is weird because i like turn based RPG's like the South Park Games, Pokemon and the Mario and Rabbids games. I also love Marvel but i just cant get into this game. I play it and i just get bored.

However that is just me. I have heard this is a good game and it has good reviews

Great game with minor setbacks. It is a very niche game being a turn-based, card, persona-like battler. I admire the creativity and passion of the developers. It clicked with me.

This game deserves to be so much more appreciated. It is a blast from beginning to end, the combat mechanics are a perfect example of easy to learn, hard to master, and every character feels perfectly viable to play while still maintaining a clear identity. The music is exceptional. DLC is also awesome. Highly recommend for any Marvel fan or anyone who likes strategy or rpg games.

The most fun I've had playing a Marvel game since the original Ultimate Alliance. There's just something about hanging out with familiar superheroes and exploring the hideout in between turn-based battles to prevent yet another apocalypse.

Great game that I fear some people missed out on, looks good graphically and story definitely had that Marvel Superhero feel! I recommend to any comic and superhero fan.

The actual game play is really great but the friendship BS is incredibly tedious.

Quality combination of a card battler and a mostly optional walking simulator. AAA graphics and gameplay, great grasp of comic history, and not a single crash

how is this game not more popular its a marvel dating sim sure it got some nasty mechanics but thats OK

It's like XCOM 2 with deck building and a friendship simulator. I thought I would hate the relationship building stuff at first, but it's basically just a vehicle for an interesting and long Marvel story. The strategy more than makes up for it and it's not weebish at all.

Amazing game. My third playthrough and still loving it! With all of the DLC, it is like a 40 hour long movie, but your team are the stars. I love how the game can adjust the challenge all the way up to Ultimate and beyond.

My favorite game in a long time. I went in for the trpg gameplay which is the best I have played since Xcom. The deckbuilding and in-combat decision making keeps you engaged for the entire length of the game. The social elements can be a big miss for people but I enjoyed it after allowing myself to engage with its lighthearted/silly nature. Slay the Spire

This is a ultimately a niche recommendation for people who enjoy deckbuilders, trpgs, and can see themselves at least tolerating the social aspects.

The gameplay was enjoyable, but for me, the real highlight was the relationship building aspect. Despite their incredible powers, the characters felt genuinely human, each with their own flaws and struggles, which made them incredibly relatable.

Great game, despite the excessively long (and often awkward) dialogues. Very polished, with cool combat mechanics

I don't write many reviews, so why this one? Because I'm very surprised. I don't usually like card games. Random things bother me lol. However, after reading some other reviews I decided to give it a shot. And guess what? For the last 66 hours, I've played nothing else. Really good story, great voice acting, interesting conversations with the various characters and while the card playing fighting gets kind of redundant, playing with different Marvel characters, and different combinations of them, makes it somewhat different and you need to use different strategies. Graphics are great as well. Kila approved!

A great tactical game completely ruined by awful dialog and unnecessary repetition of tasks you have to do over and over before every mission where the fun gameplay is.

I almost never skip dialog or cutscenes in the games I play but this games story, characters and their interactions are so empty, bland and boring that I was mashing the skip button after the first 15 hours in this 50+ hour long campaign.

The game is also in a poor technical state where the more heroes I gathered the worse the game ran in the main hub, towards the end of the campaign the game was chugging and crashing every now and then. Saving the game and loading into missions suddenly went from just a few seconds to 30+ seconds.

The "story" is heavy handed, mandatory, the worst kind of cheesy and really kills this game. Remove the story and relaunch and you might have something. Looking at the production quality, I couldn't understand why this game wouldn't be more popular. After just 15 minutes of forced dialogue, the penny dropped. Just let people play the game!!

its an ok game, but thats just it: ok. story is meh and dont get me started on the cringe dialogue. gameplay is EXTREMELY Repetitive in nature. loot box systems are horrendous. and microtransactions....im glad i got the game on sale for $8 definitely not worth full price.

I'll start by saying the actual game itself - the tactical card game elements - are very good and lots of fun. I really enjoyed probably the first 15 hours of this game, and I'll probably see it through another 10 hours or so to the end. The rest of my time I think was wasted. I think this is a good option for a tactical card game if you pick it up on a sale. Enjoy it until you get tired of it, then rush the story to the end before it wears out its welcome.

The music is OK. Customization options are pretty good overall. Cinematics are reasonably good quality, especially for Firaxis.

That said, the rest of the game is just not good or even outright bad. The voice acting is so bad for most characters that it's distracting. The story is predictable, dull, and just not very interesting. I played as a male hero and it's very clear from the writing and the context that the story is written for a woman hero - the story actually doesn't make much sense thematically otherwise. I was actually annoyed because I would have preferred playing a character that had more connection to the story. The plot sometimes relies on extremely obvious and heavily telegraphed "twists" and some awful tropes about characters not talking to each other to justify the stupid mistakes and other events that drive the action.

The writing is atrocious. There are the typical cringe marvel quips and jokes. There's also just so much dialogue and very little of it is actually salient to the plot. I cannot overstate the number of times I thought one line was the end of the conversation, only for each character to then keep talking back and forth. Everyone apparently needs to have the last word and can't let the conversation end. This is true even in passive conversations between NPCs even when walking around the abbey. A conversation with a line or two of substance will be stretched out to like 6 or 8 lines.

The worst thing about the game by far is the fact that it just doesn't respect your time. The game is played in day/night cycles with a mission breaking up the day. The missions - the actual gameplay - are fun. During the day/night sections at your home base though, you have to physically run around to each person talking to them, building your relationship, engaging in hangouts, choosing gifts, collecting randomly spawned collectibles, solving puzzles, and generally engaging in busywork. This should have been a menu with cinematics to play as noteworthy actions are taken (like XCOM), because just walking around takes so much time and finishing up a task at one station sometimes generates a follow-up task you have to complete at a station you already visited to take care of other errands. It saps me of all energy and enthusiasm I have for going on the next mission knowing that I'll come back to "homework".

There are too many loading screens. There is a cinematic that plays every single morning. Then, your character lethargically crawls out of bed in another cinematic. Then you can play. You have to press and hold Esc to skip these (twice!) so you'll still lose a second or two just skipping these cutscenes. It's actually worse in combat, because you have to watch animations for character powers and can't skip them. There's no fast-forward and no setting for animation speed. So be prepared to watch the same animations play out over and over and over again over the course of the game. The animations during hangouts and other activities around the abbey are similarly lengthy and too numerous.

The game genuinely feels at times like it was designed as a mobile game in terms of the pointless progression and time wasters included and all the weird currencies and "loot chest" rewards. Be prepared to have youtube up or something in the background to make it tolerable. Otherwise you'll lose interest long before the game is actually over.

This is the best deck-building card tactics superhero role playing game. It's also the only one, but holy fuck is this actually really good.

Overall the game is average. Lots characters, cards and abilities, mission types, and lots of dialog (probably too much) but noticeably a major part of the game. On the down side, there are technical issues, TOO MUCH TALKING, repetitive game play, having to date other heroes.

Dating all the heroes, and trying to guess what place they like, what dialog makes them happy, what gift gives the best xp, having to train with them, having to talk with them outside of card plays, and fulfill unique requests from each hero, is the WORST aspect of this game. It so time consuming and annoying. Some like negative answers even though your raising your light side. Some have the strangest gifts that couldn't have been guessed. Then the activities, book club, yes book club with Blade. (WTF? who thought this was a good idea) Not only do you have to attend to raise your friendship lvl, but you have to talk to each of the 4 heroes. Each with 4 to 5 dialog screens, sometimes with a question, then 2 to 5 more dialog screens, have book club, then talk to all the heroes again, just so you can leave and play cards again.

Did no one beta test this game?

But what I find the single most annoying factor in the game is the money wasted on the 3 second cut scene watching the heroes emerge through the portal triumphantly, only to suddenly be standing in front of your bed......What should you do now, you ask? There are no objectives, you can explore? Lets go check the forge. Oh, you can't use it? Ok, lets go train our heroes and mod some abilities. Oh, you can't use it, either? Ok, lets do another mission. Its, locked? So you can explore the grounds or go to bed? Alright, can't do anything anyways, lets just go to bed and see if it resets. Again, another 3 second animation of The Hunter, sitting on the bed, screen goes black, MIDNIGHT SUNS loading logo, then 3 second camera shot from somewhere on the grounds, to suddenly be standing in front of the bed. So, what was the point of that?

Why, was so much time spent on these little animations and cut scenes that ultimately serve no purpose? If I can't do anything most nights when returning from a mission, why not just put me to sleep upon returning, so I can get back to playing the game?

When I say repetitive, thats almost an understatement. The games starts every morning. You run to the forge, new cards, new intel, research, challenges and more. Then, out to the training grounds, for training, mod abilities, upgrades, and more. Stop at the gift shop to buy your new hero gifts for the day, talk to random people, because they are asking, all the while picking up little floating orbs of essence along the way. Then back through the Abbey to the intel center, to send heroes on solo mission and more an run through the library to pick the rest of the orbs. By now you you've talked to enough people and completed other side missions while running through the Abbey that now you have new cards to forge, so its back to the forge, then training, for new cards to combine and mods to accept, then maybe back to the forge again to make some customization's, and DON'T FORGET TO PET THE DOG. Now, your ready for a mission. In case you weren't tired enough there is hero dating in between. Do a mission, arrive at night, with everything locked, so you have to go to bed and do it all over again.

Luckily and thankfully, you can skip through the cut scenes and dialog, but damn? Did anyone play this game before release? Did anyone review how much time as actually spent playing cards vs increasing your social credit? I thought that was part keeping players engaged, so they keep playing? More time should have been spent on menu congruity. Link the Forge, the Training Grounds, the Intel Center, Mirror

Let me start by saying, I grew up loving Marvel comics, especially Spider-man, Venom, and Ghost Rider. I also enjoy turn based tactical games. If this game was a sandwich and the gameplay the "meat", this game would be a loaf of bread with a ton of lettuce and a thin cheesesteak in the middle. The bad heavily outweighs the good.

Pro: there's some voice acting reprisals from Hulk vs Wolverine
Con: this isn't enough to save it from the bad writing

Pro: The visuals are fun
Con: *When* they work, and then they very quickly get repetitive

-Textures come and go as they please on everything, even on high end pc
-the writing *drags* you can skip most of it while missing out on very little, and there's a LOT
- the actual neat visual points in the plot are things we never get to see, there are hundreds of cutscenes between the heros being dramatic, but we can't animate some action?
-the gameplay to plot ratio is intensely thin, missions have little to do with the actual plot
-the gameplay loop isn't rewarding, it just improves heros for more missions and gives limited skin changes, nothing really plot relevant at all or fun
-the abbey puzzles are extremely vague and will not bother to even give you a direction, which is tedious because the map is eternally foggy and hard to see most of.

all in all I finished the story out of spite and literally uninstalled after the credits, I was that bugged. This kinda sealed the deal that I am over studios milking Marvel, it just has lost it's appeal

Battle sequences are enjoyable and satisfying. They are also doable if you suck at these type of strategic battling games as I do, however there is a difficulty slider if you are far more experienced in these types of games to meet your bar. I have not had any game breaking bugs so far but . . . there have been some weird rendering issues once in a great while. I would also have to agree with the other reviews that state the part about the out of battle experience being a friendship sim and on top of that like an adventure investigation thing. It does get tedious and rather annoying. The story has its good and corny parts so far. In all i give this game an Eh. . . 7/10. Don't get me wrong its chill and I plan to continue to plow through it, however can't say that if another game caught my interest, that I would feel compelled to finish this one at all. Buy it on sale. Good hunting.

Game is fun in combat but boring in the interconnecting abbey segments. I don't know who thought super hero dating sim was a good idea but this is painful. I got it for a huge discount and maybe it would be worth it at such a low price but the crashes are bad enough I have to hard reset my system. This developer is as bad as Bethesda, and should be avoided in a similar fashion.

The game is way below what I expected. The villain does not feel very threatening and feels like a side character most of the time (even though she really should be threatening). I am not sure this game even qualifies an linear because you can only explore the abbey grounds, the "game play" is a cutscene and a fight. That's it. It is also repetitive, everyday you wake up and repeat the same actions from the day before.

The actual fight mechanics, and the abilities, are good (reminds me a lot of XCom) and the opportunity to mix and match abilities, add different effects and create new ones also works well. But all of that is not good enough to save the other weaknesses in this game. It is a pity because these character have so much potential for rich storytelling. Instead we're stuck in what feels like an incomplete game.

What a disappointing shame.

Rating: 8/10

Marvel's Midnight Suns is an absolute gem for both strategy enthusiasts and Marvel fans alike. Developed by Firaxis Games, the creators of the XCOM series, this game delivers a captivating mix of tactical combat, deep RPG elements, and a gripping story.

The gameplay is a true standout, blending turn-based combat with card mechanics in a way that feels fresh and exciting. Each battle presents a new challenge, requiring you to carefully plan your moves, use your hero's abilities strategically, and work with your team to overcome the formidable enemies. The card system adds an extra layer of strategy, giving you the flexibility to create customized decks that reflect your playstyle. The feeling of progression is incredibly satisfying, as you unlock new abilities and synergies as the story unfolds.

Speaking of the story, Midnight Suns offers an intriguing narrative that stands apart from the typical Marvel fare. The dark, supernatural setting and the introduction of original characters like the Hunter provide a fresh take on the Marvel universe. The character interactions are rich, and the relationships you build with your team members are key to both gameplay and storytelling, making every decision feel impactful.

The visuals are stunning, with each hero and villain brought to life in a beautifully stylized world. The cutscenes are cinematic, and the environments are richly detailed, immersing you in the world of Midnight Suns.

Overall, Marvel's Midnight Suns is an absolute triumph. It expertly combines tactical depth, character-driven storytelling, and a compelling Marvel universe that will keep you hooked from start to finish. Whether you're a long-time fan of tactical RPGs or just looking for a fun Marvel experience, this game delivers in spades. Highly recommended!