I'm familiar enough with deck-builder games to explain the problems with Death Roads Tournament in a relatively short amount of time. I'll break this down into simple explanations for the pros and cons.

Pros
Death Roads Tournament is easy to learn. If you've played any games of this type, you'll figure it out in seconds. There's a variety of cards to utilize and you'll earn more on the road as you play. I found a lot of room for different play styles in the current version. Some have complained that one bad hand can ruin a run, but I found this is simply a lack of strategizing based on enemy position and other factors. There are various cards to help swap out problematic hands. Earning new cars came quickly, but not too quickly, and the theme of the game, which is essentially post-apocalyptic Death Race 2000 deck building, is an awesome idea. However...

Cons
First off, your starting character is terrible. In the sense of uninspired and lame. For a game revolving around post-apocalyptic road warfare, starting out with a pudgy old dude nicknamed "Dude" was a huge turn-off from the beginning. Can't stand the way he looks, give me some freak of nature social outcast any day instead of a nod to The Big Lebowski? Like what?

Second, it is quite difficult to unlock new characters. I get it, you beat them to unlock them, but you'll find yourself dying quickly when you first start until you get the hang of how everything works, and it takes ages to get to the final part where you can actually battle any of them. Unlocking cars, however, is a cinch, and I wish player unlocks were similar or there was a way to battle some of them earlier. Since you're forced to start with the uninspired lead, it gets really old (pun intended), really fast. Add to this rather punishing later battles where your health will drop from full to almost empty as you're ganged up on by multiple enemies, and ugh...

Third, graphically it feels almost like a flash game and lacks the bite I expected in consideration of the game's themes. It's difficult to explain until you play it, but it simply lacks that raw, honest look I was hoping for. Way too stylized and "clean" in certain respects for a game built on road battles in a future post-apocalyptic America.

Fourth, my biggest complaint, however, was the music. Holy freak are you serious with this? I've played many a game on and off Steam and this is possibly the worst musical score I've ever heard. Completely thin, undeveloped, and unfitting to the themes. Where's the brutal metal? Extreme death industrial? Instead of setting a mood of death and destruction it sets a mood of getting stale peanuts from a backroads gas station run by an old guy who lost his virile qualities at age 20. The music you'd hear upon entering such a place? THIS IS IT. Good god it's horrible.

So, unfortunately, in spite of generally solid play and structure in that regard, Death Roads Tournament totally fails in the areas it really needed to shine in. I'd take complex play or simplicity in game structure over the waste of themes here. It has to almost be seen to be believed.