YMMV / Midnight Suns

• Alternate Character Interpretation: There's a good argument that, despite the romances being removed, a lot of the characters are actually flirting with the Hunter. Carol Danvers, for example, insists that the Hunter should go on vacation with them after the mission is won. First going skiing and then to a tropical island. The latter is particularly noteworthy as they suggest doing this alone and while they're in a hot tub together.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Agatha displays little to no concern over her tragic and sudden death, describing her experience as a ghost as "quite liberating."
  • Most of the Marvel cast generally keeps up a steady stream of Spider-Man-esque wisecracks and jokes throughout the game, even for stoic characters like Blade, constantly mocking the situation and their enemies and never taking a serious situation seriously for even a second. The Hunter has the option to complain about it to Captain Marvel in their first major conversation, but it just causes a heavy loss of approval. Eventually, Captain Marvel herself justifies it by pointing out that the entire cast has already lived through multiple potential apocalypses and this attitude is how they cope.
  • If one considers Caretaker's initial reaction to opening up and entering the library for the first time, it can be a bit confusing that she never reacts like this to Blade using this area for book club or any other characters entering the area.
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Despite being hyped up as an incredibly powerful character, Corrupted Scarlet Witch is actually quite easy to defeat when you meet her as a boss. Bonus points for the end-of-fight cutscene, which shows her throwing your characters around and forcing them to flee, while you most likely defeated her with ease just a few seconds before.
  • Chthon himself. Built up as an absolutely unstoppable apocalyptic threat, but once summoned just sort of chills out in the stage background just watching the fight, and is defeated over the course of a couple minutes by drawing some symbols on the ground.
• Audience-Alienating Premise: The game's commercial failure can be attributed to a variety of factors. The game is titled after and focuses on a fairly niche group that most casual comic fans likely haven't heard of, the gameplay is a complicated mishmash of genres with the battle system being a slow-paced Tactical RPG with limited movement and RNG-based card combat instead of the action-based gameplay Marvel fans would be accustomed to, an extremely long and somewhat complicated story with numerous dialogue prompts that dictate how other characters feel about you, the main Player Character being an original creation instead of an established Marvel character, and odd-looking character designs for the main cast that don't resemble anything they have previously worn. While many of these complaints would be addressed later on, with more iconic Marvel mainstays like Spider-Man, Wolverine and Captain America being revealed later on (with fan-favourites Deadpool, Venom, and Storm all being added later as DLC), the socialization aspect showing Hidden Depths to most of the cast, and everyone wearing outfits that look closer to their canon appearances in the final game (with the advertised outfits being late-game unlockables), it ultimately wouldn't be enough to save the game in the long run.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: An alien drone crash lands on the estate and after being found is never brought up again.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Hydra Shieldguards, due to the fact that they can inflict two different types of Cycle of Hurting— bashing a hero with their shield makes them dazed and unable to act until a certain number of cards are played, or they can punch them with a hydraulic arm, which can inflict stunned, an even worse version of dazed that doesn't wear off until damage is taken or the turn passes.
  • Guardians, the Lilin equivalent to Shieldguards. They can sacrifice their health to make a fresh shield every turn, and while they can't daze or stun like a Shieldguard, they can inflict the Wounded status, which deals damage to a hero every time you play a wounded hero's card.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: The Hunter with virtually every one of the Midnight Suns and Avengers over their canon love interests, at least within the Alternate Continuity. Apparently, romances were intended as part of the game but were removed due to the contradictions with canon.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Spider-Man. Is he strong? Listen, bud: in a game where actions are heavily limited and movement even more so, his level 2 passive makes his first environmental every mission attack cost 0 heroism, and has a chance to refund any heroism spent on environmental attacks. Opportunist is an amazing card, as it grants additional moves that anyone can use and makes Spidey's next two environmental attacks free. His Legendary Card, Infernal Spider, makes your next three Spider-Man cards free, giving you massive amounts of flexibility. Combine that with the fact that he has several cards that knockback, a card that gives him immunity to damage and draws him more cards, and a way to disable enemies for a turn with bind, and Spider-Man is probably one of the most versatile damage dealers in the game.
  • Iron Man's playstyle is very greedy, reflecting Tony's It's All About Me attitude, but damn if he can't back it up. While the game basically forces you to play nothing but Iron Man cards and spend all of your redraws on him to buff his cards if you want to play him effectively, he has one of the only abilities in the game that can damage all enemies, he can double the team's heroism, his passive gives you extra redraws, and his Legendary card doesn't have Exhaust, meaning that you can potentially play it multiple times every mission.
  • Magik, the Queen of Limbo, is a Jack of All Trades and a master at pretty much all of them. She has above-average damage thanks to a large amount of cards with the Knockback attribute, allowing her to take advantage of environmental hazards like generators, explosives and leylines. On the support side of things, she can reposition enemies using her Limbo portals, and after unlocking fellow X-Man Wolverine and completing the Teamwork Tactics II research, she can knock enemies into her teammates to draw cards. She can temporarily take enemies out of the fight by turning them into a Drop... and the upgrade to that card, Banish, allows her to do it to an ally as well, potentially taking them out of harm's way. And as a tank? Magik's legendary card, Darkchylde, makes her invulnerable and taunts every enemy on the map, basically a 'get out of jail free' card if things are going south. While it unfortunately doesn't stop status effects from proccing, having all of your enemy's ire focused on a teammate that can't die for a turn can help when you're being swarmed by duplicating Lilin.
  • Those Combat Items that have powerful effects (e.g. draw four cards, gain four heroism and one vulnerable), don't cost a card play and are balanced by being single use? Doctor Strange's Astral Meditation lets you recycle them. Two upgraded copies will let you use your two best items twice per mission, potentially without a card play if you're able to get a Free ability mod.
  • The ability mods that give you additional card plays, namely Quick (for attacks) and Free (for skills) will almost always be one of the best-in-slot options if they come up.
• Goddamn Bats:
  • Shadowhounds. Their gimmick is that each Shadowhound will target the same hero, and you have to prioritize eliminating them or get attacked several times over the course of a turn. Not terrible in theory... except that they also have a chance to apply the Corrupted status, a Damage Over Time effect that can spread to other characters. The mitigating factor with Corrupted is the fact that it can also spread to other Lilin and Hydra units.
  • The gimmick of the vampyres introduced in the DLC is that most of them die in one hit, but if you let their damage get through, they 'infect' hero cards so that the hero that plays that card gets the bleeding status. Minion vampyres have a chance to evolve into Elite versions when a hero starts bleeding, and there is no way to avoid getting the bleed effect applied to cards if you're damaged— block doesn't mitigate it, nor does resist.
• Harsher in Hindsight: During a hangout, Peter Parker has the potential to mention a friend of his from Jersey City, clearly intended as a Mythology Gag reference to Kamala Khan. Less than half a year after the game released, Kamala would be killed off in The Amazing Spider-Man (2022).
• Ho Yay: Despite the lack of romance paths in character interactions, the friendship-bonding scenes often come off as romantic regardless of gender.
  • Some people feel Captain Marvel has very flirtatious dialogue when talking to the Hunter.
  • While Magik's dialogue isn't overly flirty, it can still feel like a romance path at times considering how personal it gets.
  • Similarly, Wanda is extremely taken with the Hunter, with their relationship essentially coming across as a Rescue Romance further enhanced by their parallel histories with Transia, Chthon, and the Abbey. During a late game event, Wanda even has to lie to Nico that she's planning on confessing her feelings to the Hunter while covering for them, something the Hunter can tease her about afterwards.
  • When Robbie expresses his insecurities about his place on the team, the Hunter's dialogue options for reassuring him often sound like you're wooing him, especially when he responds by complimenting you in turn.
  • Spider-Man is very enthusiastic about his admiration towards Hunter and will quickly start referring to them as "partners" regardless of gender.
  • Hunter seems to be in utter awe of Storm in ways that go beyond mere respect if comments like being struck by her lightning being "almost a privilege" are anything to go by.
  • It doesn't help that the havens, various spots around the Abbey grounds where you can invite a teammate for some private bonding, often feel like you're on a date and just waiting for the right moment to kiss them.
  • Not to say any romantic interest is exclusive to the Hunter. Nico and Illyana are very dedicated to rescuing Wanda, the most out of any of the other heroes. After rescuing Wanda, there's a moment when she goes off alone with Magik that elicits clear jealousy on Nico's part.
  • Likewise, Strange and Tony's incessant bickering but secretly respecting each other and being concerned for the other's well-being is taken straight out of the Slap-Slap-Kiss playbook.
  • The two characters who take this the farthest with each other, by far, are Peter/Spider-Man and Robbie/Ghost Rider. As soon as Peter joins the team the two are inseparable and become best friends practically overnight, which is especially notable since it contrasts with the other Suns' exasperation at new members continually arriving. They're constantly paired up in cutscenes and pre-placed events, found their own club together, and a LOT of their dialogue references each other, even when talking with the Hunter. These conversations include them talking about gaming with each other up to plans to literally move in together. Even more damningly, one of the few times Robbie seems annoyed with Peter is when he talks about how Peter constantly talks to him about MJ, in a tone that definitely sounds more jealous than it should. Even the other characters seem to notice, with both the Hunter and Blade among others at various points sending Robbie to Peter either for advice or to calm down when Robbie gets too hot-headed.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Nico's mechanics are largely based on RNG, which has led her to being derided as an unreliable character. In the early game, most of her cards have random effects thanks to the Roulette mechanic, meaning that you can end up with a hand of cards that you can't effectively utilize. Both Witchfire, her strongest attack, and Crack in the Sky, her Legendary card, choose their targets at random. While Crack in the Sky is a fairly reliable nuke and Witchfire does get recast on K.O. there's no guarantee that its targets are all going to be low enough for either of them to be effective. Among her redeeming qualities is the fact that her level 1 passive gives you a 33% chance to draw a card after you play one of hers... but it only works if she's at full health, and that caveat doesn't go away until you get to Friendship Level 4.
  • Ghost Rider also has a rough early game, for different reasons. All of his cards have some form of drawback, ranging from increasing costs to losing health to discarding your whole hand. If one can't play effectively around these drawbacks (which aren't mitigated with card upgrades) then playing Ghost Rider will be less fun than setting your own skull ablaze.
  • Scarlet Witch has a pretty severe case of Late Character Syndrome; she's intended to be a hybrid of support and damage that can't do either effectively. She can give Resist to other heroes but not herself, most of her damage is AOE and worse than single-target damage (and half of her AOE attacks are centered on herself, in a game where character movement is a limited and precious resource) and her most effective attack, Hex Bolt, forces you to play the game counter to its design if you want to use it effectively; it gains further instances of Chain the more its played, but the game encourages you to finish encounters as quickly as possible so that your heroes don't end up with debilitating injuries. She doesn't have any built-in survivability without card mods either— while other damage-dealing heroes like Blade, Spider-Man and Iron Man have ways to increase their staying power by sapping health, giving themselves immunity to damage, or giving themselves block, she doesn't get any of that. In terms of social gameplay, she has a tendency to lock herself in her room and be inaccessible for Hangouts and Havens, meaning that leveling her friendship can be a grind. What's more, her Legendary Card, No More, is a Suicide Attack that consumes all of her health to deal that much damage, and the game penalizes you for using revives. No More was also briefly the subject of a Game-Breaking Bug with the release of the Venom DLC, which earned Wanda exactly zero points in her favor.
  • Given the game emphasises dealing with enemies quickly, characters with defensive abilities or a Gathering Steam playstyle tend to get passed over:
    • Captain Marvel's powers are underwhelming outside of Binary form, so you have to waste three actions using the base version of her abilities before their proper effects and damage potential are unlocked, and Binary Form can be lost if she loses her block.
    • Deadpool's abilities are under par without some En Fuego stacks so you have to go out of your way to get him some kills with him and ensure he's not damaged (which will erase En Fuego stacks) to make him function as well as other heroes.
    • Hulk's Rage mechanic requires him to be attacked, or use Challenging Roar (which despite taunting enemies will only provide rage for enemies already targetting him).
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Many players have taken to referring to Doctor Strange as Doctor Spooky, something Tony often calls Strange in game.
  • "Who's a good girl? It is my Charlie girl!"^note The phrase the Hunter says most often when petting Charlie. The game prompts you to try and pet her daily for rewards, so players will often end up hearing this voice line a lot.
  • The reveal of Morbius as a playable character led to all of the expected "morbin" jokes, which became an Ascended Meme in-game thanks to (who else?) Deadpool.
• No Problem with Licensed Games: Although there is some division about details within the mechanics, appearance and how long the game can take to beat if you want 100% Completion, the critic consensus is that this is an interesting X-COM-lite that uses the Marvel license to its fullest by giving the players plenty of chances to interact with their favorite heroes.
• Porting Disaster: The PC version (or at least the Steam version) appears to suffer from multiple bugs. As of late December 2022, common complaints include stuttering and crashes even on powerful gaming rigs, while some have reported fewer issues even on less gaming-oriented PCs. Closer investigation showed that these issues were a result of a combination of the game using the Denuvo DRM, as well as forced use of 2k's own launcher, and bypassing the latter using Steam's command features often seemed to cause a noticeable performance increase. In comparison, there haven't been as many complaints concerning the console versions.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Status Effects going through forms of damage mitigation or invulnerability. Logically speaking, you'd think that if you were immune to damage (such as through Spider-Man's Spider Sense ability or Magik's Darkchylde) status effects wouldn't apply, yes? Think again! Darkchylde can make you completely immune to damage but if the enemy's attack inflicts a status like Weak, Wounded, or worse, Dazed or Stunned, you'll essentially tank the attack but still get the status. An entirely separate stat called Resilience governs whether or not you resist a status effect... and it caps out at only 60%.
  • The fact that characters you take on a mission only gain friendship EXP if Hunter is in the party means the player is pressured to take them on every mission even if they'd rather use other characters.
  • The large amount of grinding needed to fully upgrade abilities and max out relationship values is a common criticism, with many mods on PC designed to speed up the progression.
  • The whole card battle system. While fans of XCOM hoped for some strategy action the battle system was often to grindy and to forced with no room for long-term planning.
  • Only being able to move once a turn, outside of repositioning for attacks, is a point of contention for some, to the point where Spider-Man, who has a card that gets around this restriction, is considered one of the best characters in the game.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Generally, the game is seen as Marvel's take on Freedom Force.
  • Unlike the developer's own XCOM, the game plays more like a Compile Heart turn-based RPG due to free-range movement during the combat section, heavier emphasis on story, and exploration during non-combat sections.
• Strangled by the Red String: Blade's infatuation with Captain Marvel takes up an entire subplot in the form of the Book Club; the Carol Danvers version of Captain Marvel is already a Base-Breaking Character thanks to her portrayal in the MCU and Civil War II, and some have voiced the opinion that this plotline is Marvel-mandated Character Shilling.
• That One Achievement: Shocking Development, stun four enemies with Storm abilities in a single turn. Storm only has 2 abilities with innate stun, one a 2 cost heroic that is single target, the other relying on field objects being present to activate. The only other way to achieve stun is through her passive, but with only a base 10% stun chance, with 5% for each of her cards in hand at max upgrade, that's still only a 50% chance of stun with her entire deck in hand. It's telling that the achievement has only a 0.9% achieved rate on steam.
• That One Level: The Deadpool DLC mission, "They Only Come Out At Night", has to be played with only two characters, neither of which are Hunter, but Blade and Deadpool. The mission furthermore has a time-based mission where you have to eliminate all of the vampires before they can chow down on the nearby civilians. Unless you have been leveling up Deadpool and Blade's abilities to include multiple Chain instances, it is almost impossible to kill enough vampires to save the civilians. If you don't? Well, it's an automatic game over. Indeed, all of the Feeding Frenzy missions with their randomness and willingness to lose automatically are this.

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