The Gamers Arms

There's a clever turn-based tactics game here (which you can read more about in our previous Midnight Suns hands-on (opens in new tab)), where you command your squad of heroes by throwing down cards drawn from their unique decks, but so far I've spent a lot more time hanging out with my new friends than fighting supervillains, demons and fascists. Midnight Suns is obsessed with the social lives of superheroes, and by putting friendship and camaraderie at the centre of everything, it ends up feeling a lot more like Fire Emblem—particularly the excellent Three Houses—instead of XCOM. 

After such thrilling, repetitive social activities such as chilling poolside and playing video games with every member of the team, I can safely say I hate all of these characters. Peter Parker is the worst of the bunch, easily getting the dunce award for the most hopeless man-child featured in any medium. It is disappointing and perhaps even borderline offensive to see these heroes depicted as such awkward, unlikeable, and emotionally immature brats. If you thought the wince-worthy banter in Gotham Knights was tough, Midnight Suns takes the cake for the worst superhero dialogue in an interactive medium in years.

There are far too many systems crammed into the social side game, all serving to bottleneck progression and further slow the game down. The social activities, such as afternoon book club (as thrilling as it sounds), much be persevered through in order to unlock valuable card upgrades. Upgrading cards by combining duplicates requires large amounts of currency which comes in three types and is sparingly rewarded in most combat scenarios, forcing players to grind generic combat scenarios in order to produce viable decks for the tough story missions. There are also systems borrowed from XCOM that don’t make much sense, such as a research tree where everything takes one combat mission to develop and usually just unlocks ‘item cards’ which have a single use and may offer an extra move or card redraw in combat.