Lots of fun. The game feels quite tightly balanced on hard, at least until the very later missions (arguably too easy). The powers are interesting and there's a fair amount of utility in the heroes's kits, and each hero has a pretty distinct style and feel.

From reading other reviews, there seems to be a complaint about how 'puzzle-like' the game is. This is somewhat true, but it only really holds early on, when there are a limited set of heroes and thus powers to operate with. Especially on hard, the first few missions really do play like puzzles as you have to play in a very specific manner to get all of the SP achievements in a single go.

Later on, however, there are a lot more options and many more ways to approach the problem. Sure, certain heroes have advantages with certain objectives, but that's the whole point of having a diverse set of skills. I'd almost say the latter missions are too easy because of that, compared to the early ones - there are many ways of handling the problems once you have all the heroes leveled up decently.

Also, I don't really understand the complaint about having to grind. There's basically zero forced grinding in this game. While XP is used for gaining levels, levels by themselves don't actually increase your power directly; levels only control what talents you can learn, and you need to spend SP to actually learn and upgrade powers. So while you can get XP by re-running a mission, you are primarily limited by the SP availability, which is quite finite as they can only be earned once by doing achievements in the missions. You can get all the SP you can get from a mission in just one run. While there are character specific non-mission achievements you can theoretically grind, I never felt like I was behind the curve power-wise by simply doing each mission once to get the SP achievements.

It's also a fairly hefty game given the missions are all hand-made. This is both good and bad since it does mostly limit replay value (it's linear, though some of the dialogue seems to change depending on your team comp) but it's a good deal of content given the nature of the missions.

The game is really more Fire Emblem than X-Com in terms of the tactics, though it's also much more utility focused than either. Also, as the missions are set pieces, you should expect to reload a couple of times on the harder ones until you find a good strategy for approaching it. Straight damage is not really the focus (though damage is good); instead, positioning and utility abilities tend to be much more important considerations. The numbers and map sizes are small, yes, but I don't see that as being a downside; instead, it keeps the focus on maneuvering and precise actions rather than trying to deal with blobs.

The game is not a grand strategy and it's not massive in scope; it's a small-unit TBT with strong focus on CC and movement. Within those lines, it does a good job and it's pretty well tuned in terms of challenge.

Really disappointing. I should love this game but most of the play time is just frustrating. It feels like each level is designed like a puzzle and you have to find a solution in order to proceed. This might be your thing, but it's not mine.

Also I hate the amount of enemies the game throws at you, you manage to get to what you think is the end of the level with a barely alive team only to find another wave of generic bad guys.

Actually that last point is probably the thing that makes the game so unsatisfying, you never feel like a super hero team more like a punching bag. Maybe it is more realistic that a guy with lightning powers will be easily killed by a bad guy with a gun, it's just not fun.

Buy this if you've played Midnight Suns and desperately need something similar. Or maybe just start Midnight Suns again.

I think a lot of the negative reviews are coming from a misunderstanding of what this game aims to be.

This is not XCOM with superheroes. It is much more into the breach with superheroes. Most levels are more like a puzzle to complete, with lots of different possible ways of doing it, but still a puzzle.

Personally, I'm really enjoying it. On the steam deck it is the perfect 10 - 15 minute blast. It runs really well, the powers of each hero are interesting and the enemies all have their own little quirks.

The story is very simple, with the twists and turns coming a mile off. The characters are all written like they're from a bad 80s movie. But neither of this is the focus so it's fine by me.

The main bad point is that the XP is very limited, so quite often you have to grind through replaying levels you've already done to level up a hero. This is exacerbated by when you get a new hero, they are level 1 so require levelling up. However, since i generally enjoy the gameplay loop this is fine by me.

£30 is a bit steep for most people for this game, but I'm happy and am enjoying the game.