It seems as though a large number of reviews here on Amazon focus on the miniatures and how "difficult" they are to assemble. So that's what I want to address first. The thing to understand is that this game is a miniatures game, first and foremost. Emphasis has been placed on creating the most detailed, dynamic minis possible. To that end, it's important to understand how much the miniatures landscape has changed. I've been assembling and painting miniatures since the 1980's, and I still have old Ral Partha, Citadel, and Grenadier figures in my collection. Back then, minis were lead-based, often one piece, and varied tremendously in the amount of detail. But one thing that was pretty standard was the posing. The one-piece casting methods limited the dynamic range of the poses, and while the sculptors tried to be as creative as they could, miniatures often existed on a mostly flat plane. The solution to this was to begin to cast miniatures in multiple parts, separating hands, arms, even heads and torsos. This gave the modeler much more flexibility and options for posing. However, with a miniatures only 25mm or less tall, it also created incredibly small parts. Not only that, but lead (and later pewter and other safer metal alternatives) is much more difficult to work with and glue together than plastic. But at the time, metal was the only option for holding incredibly fine details. Now, injection molding technology and better plastics means that plastic minis can rival metal ones in terms of fine details, and plastic is much, much easier to work with. The point of all of this, is that coming from a background of the miniature hobby, the complexity of the figures in this set doesn't intimidate me. Having said that, I can completely see how someone not used to the hobby might find these figures far more intense than even those in, say, Star Wars Legion. And those reviews, I feel, unfairly bash what might just be some of the best superhero miniatures ever put to market. Properly assembled and painted, these figures are truly astounding. Now as for the game itself? I've read through the rule book and find them to be reasonably straight-forward. Any game that involves miniatures is going to have some inherent complexity. This isn't a board game, where movement is clearly defined by spaces gridded out on a play area. Miniatures based games tend to be more "sandbox," and because of that they need more complex rules for movement and combat. Also, the steps involved for combat look intimidating, because there's a lot of them, but once you get the feel for it, it's really not that difficult to grasp. Perhaps the one area that might prove most challenging is memorizing all of the symbols and what they mean. The first few games will likely involve some page flipping for reference until all players are reasonably familiar with the symbols and icons. Play is designed around a 3x3 area, which is a smart move. Like X-Wing Miniatures, this play area allows enough room for tactical maneuvering, without making it feel like too many turns pass before players engage one another (unlike, say, some of the massive play fields for Warhammer, which can see a number of turns pass before engaging a single enemy).z The cost of the game is a bit intimidating, especially the cost of individual hero/villain expansions. However, you're paying as much for a high quality model as you are a game component. Over all, this is very cool game. The miniatures provided ARE very complex and likely will be difficult for anyone not familiar with or experienced with model / mini building. But the complexity of the minis is by design in order to create highly detailed, dynamic figures to match the subject matter of the game. Like I said above, I don't think it's completely fair to knock the game because the miniatures are complex.
