So I am a huge fan of the game. We have played with as many as six at a time and seven different people have played my version. One liked it enough that he bought his own copy and he and my nephew play quite a bit (the rest of us play every other Friday night, whoever can make it).

In my current work position, I often have videos running in the background and as such have watched a lot of stuff like the Team Covenant playing some of their various "Heroic" attempts, interviews with Boggs and Grace by Bad Publicity, play throughs by others, some reviews, and FFGs own release videos and play throughs.

First and foremost, I love that all three designers seem like people I would enjoy the smurf out of sitting around a table crushing Doritos, drinking Mt Dew and just having fun playing a game. From moments like Caleb playing the shield throw and talking about the thrlll of it to Evan's classic "seems good" to Boggs talking about some of the design stuff and wanting to redo the flipping from Risky Business...they feel like people my gaming group tends to be, maybe more interested in having a good time together playing a cool game than in maybe building the tightest, highest tier deck.

I also like that they have made a base, casual game that works really well for everyone from my 15 yr old nephew and his friend who have little to no experience on up to my brothers and I who used to be medium to high level players in an old ccg that died in about 2010...I peaked at I think 15 in the world in that one, know how to build a tight deck and find those hidden combos, just am at a place in my life where I think it is fun to play the out of the box starter decks a few times before I fool around with them. I really like the game is modifiable enough that I can play a very sub-optimal Hulk/Protection deck that lives to do retaliation and burn through the deck to get Hulk Smash...and still feel like I am contributing.

I also really appreciate the scenarios out right now. I hear a lot of people not caring for Risky Business and Wrecking Crew. I am firmly on the other side of the fence. Those are probably my favorite two scenarios. This has little to nothing to do with how easy or hard they are and a lot to do with the "feel" for us. Since we are playing co-op and not competitive, we tend to gravitate towards those for the flipping villain/alter-ego and switching which villain is active stuff as opposed to the straight "keep threat low, bash the villain" that the other 4 feel like.

I know a lot of people like a harder game and want more stuff like the heroic 2, heroic 3 level, and that is awesome. But people who play along the lines of our group tend to spend less time on forums and as such can be a lost voice. I just wanted to take a second to say to Evan, Michael and Caleb how much fun we super casual guys are having. We can get away with nonsense like running Thor, Spiderman and She-Hulk as aggression, Cap America as leadership and Black Widow justice...and find a way to make it work. We can have fun against the basic scenarios and when I play solo I can ramp up difficulty as needed.

I know appreciating Risky Business/Wrecking Crew is borderline heresy in the competitive community...but I love the work they put into it, love the scenarios. I love the way every hero feels like they operate different and fit the theme. Great job, keep it up. I speak for a very small group, just 7 peeps...but we wanted to make sure the designers heard from guys like us as well as the people who are pretty vociferous in wanting the game harder. Room for both and for us, at least, we think you are doing a phenomenal job.

Well said, the designers have done an amazing job on a game that as a kid I could only dream existed as a huge Marvel comic fan.

There enthusiasm for the lore of the characters shines through I think, and the sheer variety of characters we are about to receive on the villain side is going to give the game a huge playability boost.

Not to take away from the purpose of this post:

Evan is actually not a designer but FFG's marketing director (for all their games not just this one).

Caleb and Boggs definitely have the lead on this one, I know Nate French had a big hand in the base design system and then there have been some "guest" designers for different expansions like Matt Newman.

It is a good team and they have done a good job!

Agreed, this game has been great to play with my kids (11-13). I couldn’t really do that with eg the Lord of the Rings LCG, but my 11yo son can easily handle a Captain America or Iron Man deck. He might not play optimally, but well enough to win against all of the missions so far on the standard difficulty. That’s a rarity in a game which is also complex and interesting enough that I’m still engaged too, and not just playing for their sake.

1 hour ago, Schrodinger's Hat said:

Agreed, this game has been great to play with my kids (11-13). I couldn’t really do that with eg the Lord of the Rings LCG, but my 11yo son can easily handle a Captain America or Iron Man deck. He might not play optimally, but well enough to win against all of the missions so far on the standard difficulty. That’s a rarity in a game which is also complex and interesting enough that I’m still engaged too, and not just playing for their sake.

Thats great I play with my 16yo son and 14yo daughter, he loves spider man and she loves cap so it's all good. They are improving dramatically and it's so nice to hear her say when we playing marvel again as the two of them don't spend loads of good time together now.

But they love this game lol.

11 hours ago, 2morrow said:

Not to take away from the purpose of this post:

Evan is actually not a designer but FFG's marketing director (for all their games not just this one).

Caleb and Boggs definitely have the lead on this one, I know Nate French had a big hand in the base design system and then there have been some "guest" designers for different expansions like Matt Newman.

It is a good team and they have done a good job!

ah, appreciate that. I actually wanted to comment directly to the three of them but I am not overly technically proficient and could not figure out how. He sure seems like he has a great time when they are playing to introduce a new character or scenario and all three just really seem like, while yes, it is a job, it is a job they love and have a great time doing and I love seeing that. And enjoying the fruits of their labor. I have plans for a Rise of Red Skull release party to play the campaign with our group over the course of the following Saturday. Not a lot of games I have anticipated that much

Completely agree.

You can see that the designers are comic fans and have read histories from these characters for a long time.

They choose the characters carefully for the game, the Vulture was one of the first villains of Spiderman (long time ago) , Titania's first appeareance was on original secret wars saga from 1984 and she heated Hulka from the first time she saw her. From the same saga we recognize the wrecking crew, first appaerance on Defenders #17 (Nov 1974).

This, give us hope to see old comic characters (better designed and deeper than the newer ones, with some exceptions) like Bi-Beast, Mole-Man, Arkon, Vermin, Yellow Claw, the Badoon, Korbac and so many other.

The heroes are all designed so well... they all play diferentlly.

Black Widow is the only character that plays twice every round. First, on her phase, use his abilities to ATK and THW and later during the villain phase, her 'preparations' are triggered like traps when certain events happen; giving us these 'cover ops' feeling like a real spy.

Hulk can't THW, because he is all about ATK and make the máximum damage possible but with his obligation, the transformation from Bruce Banner to Hulk or from Hulk to Bruce Banner happens at the least expected moment. The least opportune many times. You really feels like Bruce Banner, never know when hulk appears.

Iron Man is all about engineering. You need allies to protect you while you build your armor but when it's done you become very powerfull. It's all about loose and recover tech upgrades.

Hulka, can do a lot of damage whit her 3 ATK and her 2 automatic damage every time you change from alter ego to superhero form plus 'Mean swing' card with 'Jarnbjorn' and 'Combat Training', but she is not Hulk, she can THW. She doesen't loose her mind like her cousin (never since the last year).

It would have been very easy to make the mistake of designing them the same way, the same character with diferent pics on cards, but they did a good job differentiating them.

With the scenario packs add a lot of replayability to the game, never feels the same game, and the escenarios are brilliantly designed.

All of them are diferent, with Wrecking Crew we have 4 villians at once (damm it!), with Green Gobling you use these Environment cards and for the first time the villain change from alter ego to supervillain form... just like heroes!

What they have prepared for Kang is just brilliant, 3 villain stages and in second one Kang separates the heroes across space-time... man, it's like being inside a comic from the 80's.

I just hope they do not abandon this line of work, since it seems that in the last characters and expansions they focus more on the limited vision of the marvel universe that the MCU movies offered.

I'm afraid that if marvel fans are abandoned to win over fans of the latest superhero movies, when the fashion runs out (it'll run out, the only thing in life for sure is change), the faceless mass of fans will go away looking for something newer and Marvel Champions will run out of players.

So far his work is virtuous one.