This game makes me very very sad. I didn't know about this game until late 2015 when I saw a friend playing it. I bought it and all its available DLC at the time during a Steam sale and never got around to firing it up. Fast forward to this year and my wife just gave birth to my second child. I needed a game I could play with just the mouse while I hold the sleeping baby on my other arm, and through semi-random chance I chose this one from my library. The original card game came out in 2011 with this digital version following in 2014.

I wish I had discovered both sooner, as this is now one of my favorite games.

I love RPG's, I love cards, I love things that make me think, and I love the superhero setting. This game hits on all of these. Each hero deck is its own character whose role(s) you will play in the conflict. Each environment is a character in and of itself that will help or hinder you...usually it's both. Each villain deck is a unique entity that really has its theme and character come to life through the mechanics of its deck and card plays. You won't play against Baron Blade the same way you will against The Dreamer. Well...you might...unsuccessfully.

Now, if you play games as much as I have (30+ years of gaming at this point) you eventually come to terms that a lot of games out there have their own set of rules and that once you're familiar with those rules the game itself becomes a formality. You know exactly what to do at any given moment and you can just autopilot your way through the game if you've spent enough time with it.

Sentinels isn't that. By giving you set characters to play, but making their abilities based on a card deck that you shuffle and draw from, there is always an element of randomness in how you'll play your hero. You might have all your favorite abilities in your hand; you might have none of them. You'll have to adapt to the circumstances of each game with whichever abilities you have in hand. The environment deck in play adds another element of randomness. The villain deck you're trying to defeat adds yet a third layer, and then the number of and order in which you choose to play the heroes will also have its effect on how the game turns out. Once you factor in just how many villains, heroes, and environments are available you see how no game is every truly identical due to all the possible permutations.

I chose to play this game out of utility and absolutely fell in love with the gameplay, the art, and the lore. I ended up grabbing myself a copy on my PC and my phone, grabbing my son a PC and phone copy, as well as ordering "The Entire Multiverse" (Tabletop Sentinels players know what that means).

TL;DR: I think the game is awesome enough that I bought multiple copies of it. I can't recommend it enough; and the season passes are a STEAL for the replayability they offer, especially when measured against the cost of their physical counterparts.