Marvel's Midnight Suns

 PC
User Score
6.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 147 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 78 out of 147
  2. Mixed: 25 out of 147
  3. Negative: 44 out of 147

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  1. TitaniumDragon
    Apr 2, 2023
    4
    Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG made by the creators of XCOM; however, it is radically different from most TRPGs. Instead of being based on grid based movement and initiative order, the player and the enemy take turns as teams. You control three heroes, but instead of them having a preset set of actions they can each take each turn, you instead have a deck of 8 cards for eachMarvel’s Midnight Suns is a tactical RPG made by the creators of XCOM; however, it is radically different from most TRPGs. Instead of being based on grid based movement and initiative order, the player and the enemy take turns as teams. You control three heroes, but instead of them having a preset set of actions they can each take each turn, you instead have a deck of 8 cards for each character, shuffled into a deck of 24 cards (plus one “combo attack” card, for a total of 25 cards), which you draw a hand of 6 cards each turn.

    You have three actions per turn, which means three card plays, but because some cards allow you to sometimes (or always) take an extra action, you may end up playing significantly more than three cards per turn. You can redraw up to two cards per turn, allowing you to sculpt your hand a little, and you keep extra cards from turn to turn. Some cards will draw you extra cards, while others will cause you to discard other cards from your hand.

    The game has a surprisingly large emphasis on spacing, even though most attacks simply move you automatically to your target. The main reason is the many knockback attacks in the game, which allow you to knock enemies into other enemies, causing them damage, or knock them into environmental hazards, damaging them or even killing them if you knock them into pits.

    There are various fairly simple status ailments, buffs and debuffs that increase or decrease damage or stun an enemy or ally, or which otherwise alter the mechanics slightly, like being cursed, which causes you to discard a card when you use a card with that hero.

    All in all, it makes for an interesting strategy game… at least, for a little while.

    The problem is, the game not only runs out of steam, but it also puts a lot of barriers between you and that strategy game.

    The first, and largest problem is the Abbey grounds – a small area around a central “Abbey” where your characters reside. This is unlocked metroidvania style, and contains tidbits about the characters and the world, as well as crafting ingredients which respawn and chests that periodically respawn that contain both expendable battle items and cosmetic items. It’s boring, it looks terrible, and it doesn’t add anything to the game – but you are going to spend many hours out there both unlocking the various areas and trying to gather ingredients for crafting items that are used to upgrade your cards and make consumable battle items that make you stronger in battle.

    This is really tedious and feels completely pointless and tacked on. There’s nothing about it that really enhances or even ties into the rest of the game very much… until you get to the VERY end, at which point it becomes lore-relevant. But even still, you only get very limited information, and it isn’t particularly interesting – there were better ways of doing this, but they just decided to do this probably because of Fire Emblem Three Houses, which did the same thing and was also tedious for this reason.

    The second thing is between-combat banter and hangouts. This is less tedious, but there is a huge amount of it. The writing is, honestly, fine – it’s actually nice seeing the characters develop, and they have reasonably good characterization. That being said, while this is way better than what Fire Emblem Three Houses did, there’s a huge amount of between-combat dialogue, and it is often not very well paced. It feels like more traditional cutscenes could have transmitted this information, and in a faster, more natural way that would have been more fluid and less tedious.

    Moreover, I’m wondering if this could have been delivered better – it could often take an hour or more between battles between searching the Abby grounds for ingredients and the between-combat banter and hangouts with characters. This is on top of the time you spend looking at the item drops you got – not to mention the fact that actually getting the item drops requires you to go to three different areas in the Abbey to unlock abilities, unlock intel missions, and unlock training and card upgrades, all three of which have to be visited between almost every mission.

    The game, thus, spends a huge amount of time on non-TRPG aspects, to the point where I’m quite certain I spent more time between missions than actually on missions. This gets a bit better at the end of the game, when ingredients stop respawning and you’ve unlocked the whole abbey, but it is still tedious.

    Worse, the actual TRPG aspect ends up getting dull. The game has 20-odd main story missions, but you have to do general missions between them, so you’re likely to do 50+ missions over the course of a playthrough. The thing is, the game has very limited enemy variety – there’s really only two “opposition forces”, they often are mixed together, and you basically stop getting introduced to new enemies in act 2 of the game.    … Expand
  2. mumia76
    Dec 14, 2022
    4
    Firaxis recycled XCOM Chimera Squad's game engine to quickly churn out this licensed garbage.

    The game stutters like there is no tomorrow, especially during cutscenes, must be that DRM that doesn't affect performance, I guess. The graphics is not even last gen, it is before last gen, but still performs worse than Cyberpunk 2077. The game plays like a mobile game, there is almost    Firaxis recycled XCOM Chimera Squad's game engine to quickly churn out this licensed garbage.

    The game stutters like there is no tomorrow, especially during cutscenes, must be that DRM that doesn't affect performance, I guess.

    The graphics is not even last gen, it is before last gen, but still performs worse than Cyberpunk 2077.

    The game plays like a mobile game, there is almost zero freedom, no moving on the battlefield which is about 50 feet across. I'd be lying if I said there is no fun in the encounters, that's why it is a 4 and not a zero.

    The game is saddled with a completely unnecessary TPS RPG intermission after each encounter. Where you must befriend poorly written, annoying heroes, to upgrade their abilities. It is a chore, not fun at all. You can also spend money on upgrading your Room in for all intents and purposes is a college dorm, filled with self entitled narcissistic brats. And you must tiptoe around them be afraid of saying the wrong thing and offending them, or you instantly loose friendship points.

    The freaking game even has a built in version of twitter. I wish I was joking.

    The good:
    - The encounters themselves can be enjoyable if you don't mind the mobile game like premise
    - The card based RNG system is still more fair than XCOM's 90% chance to hit missed shots.

    The bad:
    - Atrociously bad writing (just like chimera squad was) most of the dialogue is pure cringe
    - Saddled with the TPS friendship simulator with built in twitter
    - Poor performance
    - Repetitive chores to research and upgrade abilities, and gain XP
    - Worse than last gen graphics    … Expand
  3. PHDIKOULAS
    Dec 13, 2022
    0
    Just avoid, the game is bad enough without the added denuvo that kills everything. Payed 60 bucks for stutters yeah no. I also thought this would be an xcom with marvel characters. Nope. I hoped for very few bugs. Neither. Just avoid and save 60 bucks, buy it in 5 years when its on sale or something if you find it at 15 bucks
  4. Vasot
    Dec 4, 2022
    4
    It's a standard triple A title of this age ;
    - Horrendous stutters (Denuvo DRM probably has to do something about that)
    - Microtransactions in a Single player game yes I am not kidding!! They are so greedy for more money. - Consistent glaring visual bugs. the character models look like plastic toys, clothes look like cheap plastic and everything else just look off. Graphically, this    It's a standard triple A title of this age ;
    - Horrendous stutters (Denuvo DRM probably has to do something about that)
    - Microtransactions in a Single player game yes I am not kidding!! They are so greedy for more money.
    - Consistent glaring visual bugs. the character models look like plastic toys, clothes look like cheap plastic and everything else just look off. Graphically, this looks like an early 2010 game.
    -The card system swings between either meh or tiresome as ♥♥♥♥ the game would be better without them in my opinion.
    - I wonder is the story written from a teenager, feels stupid and childish sometimes
    - The downtime in the hub can just sucks up so much of the playtime if i wanted a social type of game i would buy The Sims    … Expand
  5. crucifent
    Dec 5, 2022
    3
    The combat is great, but that's IT. Everyone involved with this should be ashamed and embarrassed of how incredibly terrible the graphics and writing on this game are. I have IPAD games that look twice as good. Combat gameplay is their strong suit and they should have just stuck with that, get some real animators and even one decent writer. It's cringingly bad all around.
  6. Dean1138
    Dec 28, 2022
    1
    This game has some fun elements, which if you could get to them without a mountain of waiting time might make this a pretty good game but the flaws just make it next to worthless.

    - Tactical gameplay is reasonably interesting, but not spectacular. - Strategic / story gameplay isn't like X-com in terms of selecting upgrades etc. but a full blown story mode. No way I've found to    This game has some fun elements, which if you could get to them without a mountain of waiting time might make this a pretty good game but the flaws just make it next to worthless.

    - Tactical gameplay is reasonably interesting, but not spectacular.
    - Strategic / story gameplay isn't like X-com in terms of selecting upgrades etc. but a full blown story mode. No way I've found to accelerate the many, many, many conversations that happen between missions beyond skipping them entirely, so you can't just quickly read the summary and are forced to listen to non-compelling dialog by medium voice actors, plus a lot of walking around. A LOT of walking around.
    - The controls show this to be a bad counsel port poorly adapted to PC (unlike X-COM, which had controls that worked on PC and even the IPAD version worked well.)
    - One dumb thing: Default for going forward and dashing is left shift - W and use A or D for changing direction, making it require a lot more manual dexterity for something that is just going from point a to point B. So most users will want to go in and extensively adjust the controls.
    - Some functions you have to look up - like using the SPACEBAR to use a special word, which doesn't show up clearly when you need it. (I googled it, because it was faster than the in game menus, which are slow like everything else.
    - LOAD TIMES OMMFG. You need to have something to entertain you while this thing loads, like a Dostoyevsky novel. Not sure if this is part of the bad console port problem or what, but together with all the walking and talking it makes the game intolerable.

    I sincerely regret buying this game, $60 I won't see again for a game I'm not planning on playing again unless the load times and at least a solid amount of the other issues are resolved.

    I sincerely regret downloading this Turkey.    … Expand
  7. T4KED0WN
    Dec 5, 2022
    2
    The dialogue and writing are terrible which is to be expected since firaxis games in the past werent at all focused on story. It wouldnt be an issue if more than 50% of the playtime wasnt dialogue. It could have been good had they hired at least 1 competent writer. On top of all it has no steam workshop support and unreal engine 4 shader compilation stutter. I cant run this game smoothlyThe dialogue and writing are terrible which is to be expected since firaxis games in the past werent at all focused on story. It wouldnt be an issue if more than 50% of the playtime wasnt dialogue. It could have been good had they hired at least 1 competent writer. On top of all it has no steam workshop support and unreal engine 4 shader compilation stutter. I cant run this game smoothly with 3080 and 12600k.… Expand
  8. MxCarnage
    Dec 4, 2022
    3
    I really like the card play but the downtime between the encounters (i.e. card play) is too large. The convoluted dialoge, navigation and overall interaction (e.g. different buttons used for interacting with the environment)) is annoying. Paired with the lackluster visuals and lack of modding options make this title a disappointment.
  9. Deadheadbill
    Dec 3, 2022
    0
    Not the game I was expecting. More relationship building than turn based strategy. Hunting for mushrooms to make potions in a tbs, really? The final kicker was putting all the cool outfits behind a 100 dollar paywall. Bad form Firaxis, Take 2 has shown who is in charge.
  10. dymensi0n
    Dec 3, 2022
    0
    Microtransactions!!!! Yeah, you better grind for fake money so you can buy that expensive eyeliner, or a new hair cut! But why do that when you can BUY CURRENCY and just pay real money for cosmetics!

    Also the game is **** stuttery on a good rig that runs all new games on 4k. Combat was pretty cool but, yeah, except its not playable with the stuttering and freezing, and occasional    Microtransactions!!!! Yeah, you better grind for fake money so you can buy that expensive eyeliner, or a new hair cut! But why do that when you can BUY CURRENCY and just pay real money for cosmetics!

    Also the game is **** stuttery on a good rig that runs all new games on 4k.
    Combat was pretty cool but, yeah, except its not playable with the stuttering and freezing, and occasional crashing.

    My rating is this: 10 out of 10 Money Back! Yes, Refunded that ****    … Expand
  11. shin777
    Dec 3, 2022
    0
    Cant play the game on steam deck outside home cause game uses denuvo, plus the slutter it is causing.... Refunded sadly :(
  12. Razzzic
    Dec 9, 2022
    0
    Why oh why did you make a game like this? You had SO much opportunity to make this into what everyone was very vocal about, an X-Com type game with Marvel uniqueness to it, yet you make it into this train wreck of a game.
  13. Morthoron
    Dec 10, 2022
    0
    The game is solid, fun and addicting. Hopefully they'll keep working on it, would be happy to see new heroes and stories.

    Objectively it's a 9/10, personally is a full 10.
  14. Viaduk
    Dec 6, 2022
    0
    Very bad game, there isnt man or woman body to choose, the dialoges are so toxic and retarded that you wish to kill all characters from start. This game is very stupid and bad. Graphic very bad.
  15. BoonMoon
    Dec 5, 2022
    1
    What is wrong with the "professional" critics. This sucks. Save urself by applying ur time to better things.
  16. helladarionx
    Dec 25, 2022
    0
    Não está Dublado em português, então não sereve para porra nenhuma! Em pleno 2023 e saindo jogo com audio em inglês, NOJENTO.
  17. Fyralon
    Dec 21, 2022
    1
    Quite clearly: NO BUY RECOMMENDATION!

    Even above minimum requirements, load times from hell, language and videos asynchronous, and I'm not even talking about bugs, which are now standard for really hard currency for release. What does work flawlessly though, the 2k Spyware Launcher. Hands off, no purchase recommendation. Update after Patch December,10. 25 Gb big. Now after    Quite clearly: NO BUY RECOMMENDATION!

    Even above minimum requirements, load times from hell, language and videos asynchronous, and I'm not even talking about bugs, which are now standard for really hard currency for release.

    What does work flawlessly though, the 2k Spyware Launcher.

    Hands off, no purchase recommendation.

    Update after Patch December,10. 25 Gb big.

    Now after the patch, 25 GB big! Can the game no longer be played under dx11?!

    You set dx11 in the options, restart the game, everything jerks, slideshow in slow motion, even before the first menu and then the game crashes! Started 3 times, same result three times.
    Game saves cannot be loaded or are even destroyed. Bugs as far as the eye can see. Missions that cannot be completed, etc.

    I paid 54,-€ at Gamesplanet for this software junk.

    I am really annoyed. This outrageous 2K launcher does the rest.

    Update: Patch December the 16

    Instead of fixing the more than abundant bugs that destroy game saves or make them unloadable, instead of fixing the performance problems that really affect almost EVERYONE, no matter how good their hardware is -

    Today, they are applying a patch that allows you to stream via NVIDIA's GeForce NOW service on Steam and the Epic Games Store.

    So you can stream their jerky orgy called MMS to get more publicity!

    Customers and their criticism are completely ignored. I have never experienced anything like this!

    Update and conclusion:

    The story of the game is very straightforward except for side-quests and a few things you can discover along the way, make friends (that don't make sense), why buy the Seasonpass, for example, with more hero skins in a single player game? And what are new heroes for? To have to play the same story again?

    Somehow the game is nothing half and nothing whole. It's not a good RPG, and it's not a good strategy game either. It's more like "We sell Marvel fans lots of great colourful skins for good money".    … Expand
  18. ClintLugert
    Dec 5, 2022
    0
    I'm not usually a hater, but I had to review this game. I'm about 8hrs in. It's terrible.
    Ultimately this is an over-packed mobile game and it should have been that.
    + The combat is pretty cool, and I'm sure as it builds it gets more complex and challenging and fun. I wish that player positioning mattered much. (Would be cool if it was closer to Baldur's Gate) But it's just a battle    I'm not usually a hater, but I had to review this game. I'm about 8hrs in. It's terrible.
    Ultimately this is an over-packed mobile game and it should have been that.

    + The combat is pretty cool, and I'm sure as it builds it gets more complex and challenging and fun. I wish that player positioning mattered much. (Would be cool if it was closer to Baldur's Gate) But it's just a battle arena with a couple obstacles every time.

    - No one wants to wander around a stupid hub area collecting random, floating, thingamajigs to combine into a whatchyamacallit that adds up to a nothingmuch. It's packed with time-wasting fluff.

    - The story is a very stilted, derivative, every-hero-cameo with the old end-o-the-World-trope. Feels like this was written by 13 year old for a 13 year old.

    - The best part of the game is the banter - but if everyone's a smart-ass then there's not much contrast there either.

    - The graphics & physics are last gen at best. I am shocked this was made on any Unreal engine.

    - And the cloud saves are busted at launch (with Steam Deck at least.)

    Spider-man and Guardians of the Galaxy were amazing. Unfortunately, this belongs in that other pile with Marvel's Avengers.

    I very much regret this purchase. Wish I could return on Fanatical.    … Expand
  19. joker_old
    Dec 10, 2022
    0
    the best Marvel game yet 10/10 for me . soo fun and enjoyable . Very strong characterization and story
  20. Tigershark
    Dec 27, 2022
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Game is bugged, and sub-standard. Graphics are awful. The text is tiny and often unreadable. The rewards are weak (color palettes). The clothes and decorations are lame (tons of cargo pants). Nothing really carries over into new game plus.… Expand
  21. RawIronHeap
    Jan 27, 2023
    0
    Genuinely confused by some of the reviews here. A counter to many of the complaints I see below:

    "There is a lot of fluff to fill in the game" - Most of this stuff is OPTIONAL. Even if you feel it isn't. You can also easily skip through a large majority of it and just run right to the war table. That simple. Yes, you may have to run a few feet from one place to another to level up    Genuinely confused by some of the reviews here. A counter to many of the complaints I see below:

    "There is a lot of fluff to fill in the game" - Most of this stuff is OPTIONAL. Even if you feel it isn't. You can also easily skip through a large majority of it and just run right to the war table. That simple. Yes, you may have to run a few feet from one place to another to level up cards, get new ones, or send Ghost Rider's lazy ass on a mission, but that's it.

    "It has bad graphics" - First, anyone who puts a heavy weight on graphics just doesn't know what a good game is. Second, it's not nearly as bad as everyone giving low scores is saying. It's passable.

    "It's a technical mess" - Personally, I have had very few issues with this game. It could run better, sure. But it gets to the game and I can play it with very little hassle, if at all.

    (In essence) "I don't like Marvel" - Then why even get this game? Just so you can say you don't like it and give it a bad score? Utterly pitiful if you ask me.    … Expand
  22. A467806h
    Jan 27, 2023
    0
    For the lack of a Russian language! Ordinary people have nothing to do with it! You behave like fascists. Russian is spoken by 300 million people worldwide. Children can't learn the language so quickly or so quickly to read and translate playing the game! Reconsider your views and be more human! Developers of other games do not behave like this. Every game has and must have Russian!!!
  23. neonvega
    May 8, 2023
    3
    game feels unpolished, character models very lacking in detail and graphics dept, how is this a next gen game when it feels right at home on as ps3 mid launch title; combat can either be fun nor disasterous with constant enemies every round, forgettable story and overall lack of quality of life features lacking
  24. TuxDC
    Mar 11, 2023
    4
    I can’t believe we don’t have Xcom 3 for this disaster. What an absolute waste of time. Combat could have been fun but the abbey friendship garbage is stupid. No one wants to play board games with Tony Stark for increasing a friendship bond.
  25. Bibikelis
    Sep 1, 2023
    0
    Игра возможно классная , я люблю этих разроботчиков. Но эти плохие люди вырезали русский язык, и как мне теперб играть !? Спасибо поиграю во чтотто другое терпрь ..

    The game may be cool, I love these developers, But these bad people cut out the Russian language, and how can I play now!? Thanks, I'll play something else, wait..    Игра возможно классная , я люблю этих разроботчиков. Но эти плохие люди вырезали русский язык, и как мне теперб играть !? Спасибо поиграю во чтотто другое терпрь ..

    The game may be cool, I love these developers, But these bad people cut out the Russian language, and how can I play now!? Thanks, I'll play something else, wait..
  26. SlurpyZerg
    Jan 13, 2023
    4
    In the long run: its boring. One mission per day/night. Now i dont care about the small talk i just force the main story.
  27. Grandboar
    May 1, 2023
    0
    Canceled Russian localization. Very bad attitude towards the players. I don’t understand why ordinary players suffer.
  28. djlockjaw
    Aug 1, 2023
    3
    This game is a mess. Two major issues – a shallow tactical layer, and a time sink of a strategic layer.

    The tactical layer is weak. Positioning is unimportant, abilities are very samey, and there’s very little ability to think tactically because your actions are restricted to a handful of random cards each turn. Draw all support, healing, or defensive abilities? Tough luck. Because    This game is a mess. Two major issues – a shallow tactical layer, and a time sink of a strategic layer.

    The tactical layer is weak. Positioning is unimportant, abilities are very samey, and there’s very little ability to think tactically because your actions are restricted to a handful of random cards each turn. Draw all support, healing, or defensive abilities? Tough luck.
    Because it’s a card battler with three plays a turn, a hero getting KOd doesn’t matter. Losing a soldier in XCOM can easily lead to a squad wipe or at best a much more difficult mission, but here it’s a mild inconvenience.
    If this wasn’t bad enough, the cards themselves can be upgraded in a number of ways, but the caliber of the cards does not increase. Instead, early game abilities are by far the most useful, so there’s no incentive at all to unlock or upgrade abilities.

    The strategic layer (running around the mansion and hanging out with heroes) is a huge time sink, and nothing matters.
    - Loading times of almost one minute between missions and the strategy layer, even with a SSD.
    - Each “day” in game has THREE separate skippable cutscenes. One for the Hunter to get into bed, one landscape scene, and Hunter getting up.
    - After you get up each day, there’s a number of tedious tasks that don’t matter in the slightest. Go to do research and unlock the previous day’s cards, go to the training area to build friendship with another character, stop by the gift shop to buy presents, stop by C.E.N.T.R.A.L. to do an off-screen hero mission for a pointless reward, and THEN select a mission. These things could have all been done through a simple interface, but you have to run all over the mansion to do these tasks.
    - There’s a lot to do in the strategy layer, but you’ll probably be in the middle of the game or later before you realize none of it matters. Unless you really want to go fishing with Wolverine, or go to a (repeated) book club with Blade.
    - There’s a huge amount of collectibles, but literally none of them matter. Even the mission rewards don’t.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

49
#49 Best PC Game of 2022
32
#32 Most Discussed PC Game of 2022

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
83

Generally favorable reviews - based on 79 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 69 out of 79
  2. Mixed: 10 out of 79
  3. Negative: 0 out of 79
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 24, 2024
    80
    The fights are very specific, tactical and surprisingly fun and often challenging, even knowing that a fallen hero can be put back on his feet on the spot during a fight and used in the rest of the encounter. [Issue#324]
  2. RPGamer
    Jun 5, 2023
    80
    In spite of its technical issues, Marvel’s Midnight Suns is an easy recommendation to strategy and superhero fans or anyone who’s been missing the more traditional BioWare experience. Its tactical combat stands out in the genre and is consistently compelling. The plot is no great shakes but the characters are excellent renditions of decades-old favorites. It’s also a well-paced game, never getting bogged down in any one form of play for too long but free-form enough to allow for players to do that if they wish. Not only is Midnight Suns a great Marvel game, it’s a great game in its own right.
    Read full review
  3. TouchArcade
    Feb 14, 2023
    90
    While I wasn’t really sold on Marvel’s Midnight Suns pre-release, it has continued to impress me more as I played through the story, and it is chock full of a ton of optional content that will keep you busy for a very long time. It wasn’t a great experience around launch on PC, but Marvel’s Midnight Suns is well worth your time right now, and a joy to play on Steam Deck. It already felt like a perfect fit for Steam Deck from the start, and it has finally been fixed for Valve’s portable system with a recent update.
    Read full review
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