tl;dr - Amazing combat, addictive gameplay loop, writing/story that's good 90% of the time and bombs the other 10%, performance mostly good if you disable 2k launcher. Big recommend for one playthrough. However, replay is questionable with a flawed NG+ and frustrating QoL issues.


I have 300+ hours in XCOM 2, 200+ in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and 50+ in Slay the Spire (plus 100 across other deckbuilders). Marvel is whatever, take it or leave it to me. 10 hours into Midnight Suns, I can easily see it joining the upper echelon of my gaming time. So, I'm surprised that the reviews are so poor.

Here's my experience with the most common negatives I've seen:
1) Poor performance. I have a GTX 1070 Ti. On max settings, there's a lot of hitching and stuttering. It's playable, but it's persistent and annoying. One step below max settings though, it runs close to flawlessly. The graphics aren't great, but honestly, it looks dated regardless. BUT...bypassing the bloated 2k launcher let me play on max again.

2) Writing. Reviews naysaying the writing are focusing on the worst 10% of the game. 90% of the dialogue in this game ranges from fine/enjoyable to very solid. The characters are consistent to their personality in the game (which can differ from MCU). I've chuckled several times. Some jokes are so dumb they're funny. But, yes, 10% of the dialogue is quite bad, too cheesy, or off-tone. I'd give it a 7.5/10 so far.

3) Denuvo and microtransactions. Denuvo sucks. As for microtransactions, it's limited to combat skins for the heroes. They're $3/each or you get them all with the legendary edition, which includes a pass that will probably be $25 or $30, so the 20ish skins are $10-15 altogether. Do with that as you well.

Alright, so with that out of the way, this game is worth playing for the deckbuilding and tactical combat alone. Battles are fantastic. There's tons of tactical play on the battlefield with environmental effects and enemy/hero positioning. Strategy is prevalent in how you build your decks over the course of the campaign. I love the progression so far, and my heroes keep getting stronger at a healthy clip. It's genuinely tough to choose who I want to bring into battle because they're all so interesting. Animations, unlike the graphics, are really awesome. I also love the battle music. It's varied, engaging, and gets me pumped to kill the baddies.

The difficulty is there too, it's just a bit different. There are 8 difficulties that you slowly unlock by doing well in missions. The better you do, the harder it will be (if you want). I'm unlocking a new difficulty every 4-5 hours. It's a nice stepping stone as you learn the game. You can't lose a campaign like in XCOM, but you will sit and ponder your tactical/strategic moves just as long.

The abbey is going to be subjective. I enjoy the banter and camaraderie, but if you wanted to blast through it to get back to combat, you could with little loss. You can skip dialogue pretty quickly if you just want the bonuses from friendship. There are also nice rewards from exploring, but you can do equally well spending your time on side missions if you prefer.

One piece of advice to maximizing fun: limit yourself to 3 side missions tops per main mission. Otherwise, the game might start to feel grindy as you chase incremental rewards that are meant to be spread out over the whole campaign.

I've finished the game, started the postgame, and messed around with NG+. Largely everything I said 10 hours in still applies.

The writing misses hard ~10% of the time, but 90% of it is fine/good to great. There is a significant plot hole near the ending, but otherwise the main story is almost as good as MCU's Iron Man -> Avengers: Endgame sequence. Not award winning, but entertaining, and very good as far as superhero stories go.

Combat animations and accompanying sound effects look and feel good. Music never wows enough to take the center stage, but it's constantly solid.

Core gameplay loop is fantastic, and the fact I want more after 90 hours says a lot. I've been on Ultimate 3 (hardest diffuclty) for a while, and even when I'm winning almost every battle, it still requires me to think through my moves. The variety of ways you can mod cards adds a fun loot system reminiscent of Diablo. I also enjoyed the abbey. You can do as much or as little as you want there, and it feels pretty homey. Finally, despite some performance issues, I have to say that the final battle was a blast. One of the best I've ever experienced.

Overall, The devs made a great core game, but then they kinda stopped. By that I mean there are some frustrating Quality of Life issues and NG+ is designed to leave no one happy.

First, QoL stuff:
- There's no minimap or even compass when exploring the abbey, a place with several paths that look very similar to one another. You will constantly press 'm' to reorient yourself.
- You can't pause conversations or cutscenes. I can't imagine trying to engage with this story if I had a newborn. Hilariously, you can pause the credit roll once you beat the game though.
- No saving deck layouts. Team compositions can affect what cards you want to bring but you have to edit individual hero decks every mission to facilitate that.
- 2k launcher is a performance disaster

And onto NG+
First, here's what transfers:
- Champion Levels (small HP/offense growth after reaching level 25)
- Friendship (max of level 5 per character, no prestige bonuses in excess of 5)
- Cosmetic unlocks (note, not the cosmetics themselves - you will have to rebuy them with gloss)
- Heroes (all are available from start rather than being story unlocked)
- Research, sorta (everything must be researched again, but you no longer have hero-based requirements to do so)

Notably, what resets are your cards, the abbey, and completed puzzles for legendary cards. Main story missions require the same mandatory heroes. That means...

- If you want a constant challenge in NG+, you can't have it. Every time you beat the game, it gets easier because champion levels will keep upping your stats + friendship will give you every hero's passive.
- If you want to keep your stuff to blitz through NG+ and feel powerful or try a harder difficulty with your decks, you can't.
- If you just want to keep looking cool and experience the game fresh, you can't. All your cosmetic purchases are reset .
- If you want to play the game without having to redo identical puzzles/exploration, you can't. The abbey resets every NG+ with no changes. Hunter challenge battles are fun to explore with different decks so there is at least some justification for this. But you must also redo the Armory puzzles that grant legendaries for heroes. They are fun to for each hero exactly once. Yet you must do them EVERY NG+ to get each hero's legendary card.
- If you want to try story missions with different characters, you can't. Most story mission mandates 67% of your team. Some missions mandate a full 100%, meaning these missions will get stale fast. Story missions should allow either: no hero requirements OR one randomized hero required like general missions. Yeah, it creates some cutscene dissonance, but it's NG+. Who cares?

NG+ as it stands is built for no one. I personally want a new challenge every playthrough, but champion level carryover makes that a huge turnoff. I have a friend though who is happy about champion levels but is ticked off he can't keep his cards. I'm not saying some players won't find NG+ enjoyable, but it pales in comparison to what it could be.

The super obvious solution is to allow players to choose what transfers and what doesn't. There are simply too many variables to make a one size fits all solution for NG+ in this game. Until that happens, this NG+ is going to be a mess, and the game's longterm replayability will be questionable.

tl;dr - Amazing combat, addictive gameplay loop, writing/story that's good 90% of the time and bombs the other 10%, performance mostly good if you disable 2k launcher. Big recommend for one playthrough. However, replay is questionable with a flawed NG+ and frustrating QoL issues. [h1]ORIGINAL REVIEW[/h1] I have 300+ hours in XCOM 2, 200+ in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and 50+ in Slay the Spire (plus 100 across other deckbuilders). Marvel is whatever, take it or leave it to me. 10 hours into Midnight Suns, I can easily see it joining the upper echelon of my gaming time. So, I'm surprised that the reviews are so poor. Here's my experience with the most common negatives I've seen: 1) Poor performance. I have a GTX 1070 Ti. On max settings, there's a lot of hitching and stuttering. It's playable, but it's persistent and annoying. One step below max settings though, it runs close to flawlessly. The graphics aren't great, but honestly, it looks dated regardless. BUT...bypassing the bloated 2k launcher let me play on max again. 2) Writing. Reviews naysaying the writing are focusing on the worst 10% of the game. 90% of the dialogue in this game ranges from fine/enjoyable to very solid. The characters are consistent to their personality in the game (which can differ from MCU). I've chuckled several times. Some jokes are so dumb they're funny. But, yes, 10% of the dialogue is quite bad, too cheesy, or off-tone. I'd give it a 7.5/10 so far. 3) Denuvo and microtransactions. Denuvo sucks. As for microtransactions, it's limited to combat skins for the heroes. They're $3/each or you get them all with the legendary edition, which includes a pass that will probably be $25 or $30, so the 20ish skins are $10-15 altogether. Do with that as you well. Alright, so with that out of the way, this game is worth playing for the deckbuilding and tactical combat alone. Battles are fantastic. There's tons of tactical play on the battlefield with environmental effects and enemy/hero positioning. Strategy is prevalent in how you build your decks over the course of the campaign. I love the progression so far, and my heroes keep getting stronger at a healthy clip. It's genuinely tough to choose who I want to bring into battle because they're all so interesting. Animations, unlike the graphics, are really awesome. I also love the battle music. It's varied, engaging, and gets me pumped to kill the baddies. The difficulty is there too, it's just a bit different. There are 8 difficulties that you slowly unlock by doing well in missions. The better you do, the harder it will be (if you want). I'm unlocking a new difficulty every 4-5 hours. It's a nice stepping stone as you learn the game. You can't lose a campaign like in XCOM, but you will sit and ponder your tactical/strategic moves just as long. The abbey is going to be subjective. I enjoy the banter and camaraderie, but if you wanted to blast through it to get back to combat, you could with little loss. You can skip dialogue pretty quickly if you just want the bonuses from friendship. There are also nice rewards from exploring, but you can do equally well spending your time on side missions if you prefer. One piece of advice to maximizing fun: limit yourself to 3 side missions tops per main mission. Otherwise, the game might start to feel grindy as you chase incremental rewards that are meant to be spread out over the whole campaign. [h1]EDIT - FINAL REVIEW[/h1] I've finished the game, started the postgame, and messed around with NG+. Largely everything I said 10 hours in still applies. The writing misses hard ~10% of the time, but 90% of it is fine/good to great. There is a significant plot hole near the ending, but otherwise the main story is almost as good as MCU's Iron Man -> Avengers: Endgame sequence. Not award winning, but entertaining, and very good as far as superhero stories go. Combat animations and accompanying sound effects look and feel good. Music never wows enough to take the center stage, but it's constantly solid. Core gameplay loop is fantastic, and the fact I want more after 90 hours says a lot. I've been on Ultimate 3 (hardest diffuclty) for a while, and even when I'm winning almost every battle, it still requires me to think through my moves. The variety of ways you can mod cards adds a fun loot system reminiscent of Diablo. I also enjoyed the abbey. You can do as much or as little as you want there, and it feels pretty homey. Finally, despite some performance issues, I have to say that the final battle was a blast. One of the best I've ever experienced. Overall, The devs made a great core game, but then they kinda stopped. By that I mean there are some frustrating Quality of Life issues and NG+ is designed to leave no one happy. First, QoL stuff: - There's no minimap or even compass when exploring the abbey, a place with several paths that look very similar to one another. You will constantly press 'm' to reorient yourself. - You can't pause conversations or cutscenes. I can't imagine trying to engage with this story if I had a newborn. Hilariously, you can pause the credit roll once you beat the game though. - No saving deck layouts. Team compositions can affect what cards you want to bring but you have to edit individual hero decks every mission to facilitate that. - 2k launcher is a performance disaster And onto NG+ First, here's what transfers: - Champion Levels (small HP/offense growth after reaching level 25) - Friendship (max of level 5 per character, no prestige bonuses in excess of 5) - Cosmetic unlocks (note, not the cosmetics themselves - you will have to rebuy them with gloss) - Heroes (all are available from start rather than being story unlocked) - Research, sorta (everything must be researched again, but you no longer have hero-based requirements to do so) Notably, what resets are your cards, the abbey, and completed puzzles for legendary cards. Main story missions require the same mandatory heroes. That means... - If you want a constant challenge in NG+, you can't have it. Every time you beat the game, it gets easier because champion levels will keep upping your stats + friendship will give you every hero's passive. - If you want to keep your stuff to blitz through NG+ and feel powerful or try a harder difficulty with your decks, you can't. - If you just want to keep looking cool and experience the game fresh, you can't. All your cosmetic purchases are reset . - If you want to play the game without having to redo identical puzzles/exploration, you can't. The abbey resets every NG+ with no changes. Hunter challenge battles are fun to explore with different decks so there is at least some justification for this. But you must also redo the Armory puzzles that grant legendaries for heroes. They are fun to for each hero exactly once. Yet you must do them EVERY NG+ to get each hero's legendary card. - If you want to try story missions with different characters, you can't. Most story mission mandates 67% of your team. Some missions mandate a full 100%, meaning these missions will get stale fast. Story missions should allow either: no hero requirements OR one randomized hero required like general missions. Yeah, it creates some cutscene dissonance, but it's NG+. Who cares? NG+ as it stands is built for no one. I personally want a new challenge every playthrough, but champion level carryover makes that a huge turnoff. I have a friend though who is happy about champion levels but is ticked off he can't keep his cards. I'm not saying some players won't find NG+ enjoyable, but it pales in comparison to what it [b]could[/b] be. The super obvious solution is to allow players to choose what transfers and what doesn't. There are simply too many variables to make a one size fits all solution for NG+ in this game. Until that happens, this NG+ is going to be a mess, and the game's longterm replayability will be questionable.