shortansweet wrote:
I do not recommend this to seasoned gamers for fear of disappointment. However, if you want to introduce a casual gamer to deck builders, this isn't a bad start, but I'd probably get Legendary, Ascension or Dominion instead.
This review cracks me up to no end. It blasts this game for having little theme and THEN recommends Dominion, one of the most themeless soulless games that makes a claim to popularity?
From the title alone, this seems like a Marvel fanboy "review" rather than any kind of objective review.
However, everyone has their own views and vantage points, so I'll simply offer my own in this thread to balance out the views in the review.
Counterpoint #1) DCDBG has more theme than any of the three games the reviewer recommends.
Legendary falls very flat themewise with its bogus semi-coop mechanic, equally unthematic gameplay elements (page through Legendary low ratings comments for examples), and monotonous art. The reviewer starts his review of the DC game with the most themeless heroes (Aquaman and GL) neglecting to mention Flash and Batman play extremely well thematically. Our group thinks Aquaman is pretty thematic actually as we feel his power is the weakest :-).
Counterpoint #2: DCDBG has MANY plus points over Legendary.
1. Lower price: fact
2. Shorter setup time: fact
3. More varied art: fact
4. Funner gameplay: opinion, of course
5. Better mechanics: opinion
6. Better victory conditions: opinion
Counterpoint #3: DC is not in "hopeless catchup" of Marvel.
The reason it is easy to spout the hopeless catchup phrase is that the Marvel movie franchises are kicking butt, and that there have been more Marvel Zombies out there than DC fanboys since the heyday of the X-books. However, considering the following areas where DC is not playing "catchup" (all opinion of course)
1) DC's animated series and animated movies blow Marvel's out of the water.
2) DC's kids comics and chapter books (Superpets among them) are much more varied, numerous, and better written than Marvel's (Important for dads to know!)
3) DC's TV shows have been better (Arrow, Smallville, Lois & Clark...) though I've heard Agents of SHIELD is very good. Small sample sizes though, yes.
4) DC Universe themed boardgames have been better than Marvel based ones at this stage, outside of opinions on the deckbuilders.
Admittedly not much to go on for either brand, but I feel the recent Batman: Gotham City Strategy Game and Arkham City Escape game are much, much better than the now out of print Marvel Heroes game I played a few times and sold off.
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I think the above opinions can generally be agreed with by an objective observer. My contention that DC Comics have always been better written in general than Marvel Comics since the days of Stan Lee's writing is of course my own strong personal bias :-).
SUMMARY:
So those are my counterpoints. I respect the OP's opinions, but I feel the review is very high on opinion and comes from valid but biased viewpoints, as opposed to being a more balanced and objective review.
Obviously, hardcore ("seasoned" as the OP refers to them) Eurogamers and BGG addicts who love analysis-heavy games like Le Havre are not going to like DCDBG. I agree 100% that this game is not for them. However, that in no way makes it a bad game :-).