Review Details

DC Comics Deck Building Game

Product Review (submitted on August 16, 2016):

Disclaimer: I am NOT a DC Comics fan. I'm a Marvel fan, but not a major one. I don't stay up on the comics, etc, though I will watch the movies. I've never been a big DC fan so this was a major step for me to play this game because I knew WHO the people were (at least the heroes) but not much else about them, and especially not a ton about most of the cards in the deck. Anyways, onward to the game!

I was introduced to this game through a member of our gaming group. We played it a few times and I was given it as a gift a month later by my wife because we enjoyed it. I would never have picked this game up on my own from my FLGS because I don't really care for DC comics and wouldn't want to give it that much of a shot. It's outside my impulse buy expense limit- I'll buy a game for 20-30 bucks I know nothing about, but $40 is over the limit.

Anyways, onto the CONCEPT of the game.

Concept: The object of the game is to score the most points. Each player starts off with the same 10 cards and a different superhero. All the superheros have different powers and some are better then others (Green Lantern is bad at the start of the game, Flash is bad always, Aquaman is really powerful the whole game, and so is Wonder Woman). You draw a hand of 5 cards and any cards you buy go into your discard pile. You cannot save cards so you either play cards for their effect or discard them Cards give you power, which you use to buy cards from the center row (replenished at the end of the turn), a more advanced basic card anyone can buy, or a supervillain. Supervillains are worth the most points and once the stack of supervillains is gone (12 of them) the game is over, points are tallied, and whoever has the most points wins.

This is the whole game, really. Some cards have attacks on them (all cards with attacks are villains but not all villains have attacks) which have different effects and (discarding cards, gaining weaknesses to your deck for negative points, and other problems) and can be blocked by certain types of cards (say defense on them). Game play is relatively quick and exciting and it usually takes us 20-30 minutes to play a 3 player game, so it is not a super long game.

Thoughts: This game actually has a lot going for it. It's exciting and its fun to fight the villains, and most the games are enjoyable. As stated, I'm not a DC fan. However, this didn't stop me from having a fun time playing this game. I still don't know who all the characters are, and sometimes the effects of the cards bug me, like using the bat-signal to bring Superman from your discard pile to your hand, but I can let that slide for the sake of the game. However, it does have a few problems with it.

Problems: The Man of Steel card as written is just TOO good and whomever gets it basically wins the game everytime because they are having 25+ power turns while everyone else gets 10 or so. We nerfed him by only letting you pull 1 of each kind of superpower from your discard pile so the play with superman doesn't buy all the kicks to have massive turns.

Secondly, as stated earlier, not all superheros are created equal. This can be a big disadvantage to some characters and make the game not quite as a fun. We don't like playing with the Flash, while people with Aquaman, Wonder Woman, or Cyborg seem to win the most. This is just an observation, however.

Final Thoughts: This is a really fun game. This is a great filler game and we usually play best of 3 tournaments to make the games more interesting. I'd recommend anyone who likes superheros to buy this, anyone who wants a quick, fun game that is different, and anyone who loves DC definitely should buy this. It's a lot of fun and was a lot more enjoyable then we thought. Though I'm still not a DC fanboy, I'll admit. But this help me like them a little bit more.