Let's get a few things out of the way. Caveats, y'know? I owe my love of board games to SUSD. My gaming white whales, Twilight Imperium and Gloomhaven, are due in part to their reviews. Heck, I own Arkham Horror because of those dudes. They're also the giants in the room, forget elephants! I highly doubt they'll take my critique seriously. They're in a position where they don't really need to, and that's fine. I'm a little blogger who posts incredibly dark and ridiculous RPG posts. I'm hardly even a presence in the Marvel Champions community, usually because I play the game in my off-time, as a way to de-stress from my own time playing ridiculously intense gaming sessions. This game is a bit of a meditative thing for me in a way that no other game is. So I don't pretend to be an objective or important figure in any way, shape, or form. I will continue to watch SUSD and enjoy them.
But that above review? There's some problems.
Well, one problem, really.
It's objectively wrong.
I do not have issue with them preferring Arkham Horror. At all. I totally get it. I own both games. I'm still waiting on that stupid Miskatonic Museum pack to come back out so that way I can play the next chapter of The Dunwich Legacy. I don't even have issue with them saying they prefer Arkham Horror in this review. That's all fair.
But they get the game wrong. They actually miss something that is a basic component to the game. And that's not good. It makes the review objectively bad.
For those of you who were looking at this review to find out if they wanted to get the game, there is one part of this game SUSD completely missed. Any time you want to during your turn you can ask someone to play a card with the word "Action" in it. You can just turn to someone else and ask for them to play a card. People can ask you if they can play a card. And it produces some of the most hilarious moments I've seen in a game "PLEASE ASK ME TO PLAY A CARD. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE" is an exact quote from almost any game I've played in, as I bounced in my seat during other people's turns. Amused, my little sister would pander to me and let me play a card. Or the other way around, although she was much less excited about it. Which is fair. I'm strange. She is too, but not quite in my way. This is incredible co-op play. We play with closed hands, as the game designers intended, and that is the honestly the best thing ever. "Ooh ooh ooh pick me!" is a key part of this game. It is no turn solitaire. It is some of the most interactive fun I've had in a game in my (admittedly very limited!) experience. The game rules allow for some genuinely awesome conversations. That's not a question of taste or feeling or anything else. It is a fact.
And that is the objective failing of the review. I can see some of their other issues with it and agree with them on some level, but this one thing? Where they call it turn solitaire? When there are rules that can create an environment that is completely the opposite of what they say it is? It's misleading. And I take issue with that. Don't like one of my favorite games, that I use to de-stress? That's fine. But at least frickin' get it right.
I expected better of SUSD. I am not silly for doing so. And I am disappointed. They can do better. I hope they do.
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