Spandex? Check. Cape? Check. Underpants on the outside? Double Check.

Imagine if you will you are a spandex clad hero of the DC Universe, your days are spent performing super heroics and keeping up appearances to avoid people finding out you spend your spare time running around in brightly coloured pjs. Now imagine you are a Celestial Being beyond the mere trivial lives of the mortals beneath you, the trivial lives of the super heroes and super villains have now become a game to amuse you during your life eternal.

Grab your mask and utility belt as we prepare to recruit heroes and villains to help us win the game

Welcome to DC Comics Deck Building Game: Heroes Unite

Story

You are the Game Master (whether you are a Celestial Being or Government Agent is up to you). Your job is to recruit the best team of heroes and villains in order to win the game

Game Mechanics

Deck/Bag/Pool Building

Number of Players

2-5 Players

Play Time

45-90 Minutes

Down Time

How best to spend your Power (the in game currency)

How does it play?

It's fairly easy to learn and simple to play as the difficulty in the game comes from spending your power to maximise your chances of winning.

Game Set-Up

1. Shuffle and stack the Main Card Deck

2. Draw 5 cards and place them in the Line-Up area

3. Stack the Kick Card Deck and place it opposite the Line-Up.

4. Remove Vandal Savage from Super Villain deck, shuffle the deck and place it face down next to the Kick Deck and place Vandal Savage on top of the deck

5. Stack the Weakness deck next to the Super Villain Deck

6. Deal 7 Punch Cards and 3 Vulnerability Cards to each player and return the unused cards to the box

7. Each player selects one the Super Hero Cards and places the rest back into the box

8. Each player combines their Punch and Vulnerability cards, shuffles them and places them to their side.

9. Each player draws 5 cards from their deck and starting from the lead player, play counter clockwise

Game Sequence

Each turn a player draws a card and either: -

1. Spends Power to purchase a card

2. Activates a card effect

The game is made up of turns where each player spends power or card activation.

The different cards in the game are as follows: -

Punch Cards - Starter Card, gives 1 Power

Vulnerability Cards - Starter Card gives 0 Power

Super Hero Cards - Deck Commander, each have a special ability the player can use

Weakness Cards - Gives no Power and costs you -1 Victory Points at the end of the game

Super Villain Cards - Each super villain has it's own Power cost and Victory Point score. Each villain has their own super power to help during the game

Villain Cards - Each card has a variable Power Cost and VP score. Some villains come with effects, others come with attacks.

Location Cards - Variable Power and VP. Each card comes with its own effect

Super Power - Variable Power Costs/VP. These are the powers of the heroes in the game. Some cards have more than 1 effect. Some cards come with a defence effect for defence against attacks

Hero Cards - Similar to Villain cards but with heroes

Equipment Cards - Variable Power/VP. Each equipment card has it's own effect to help the player win the game

Game End

When you are unable to flip a Super Villain face up or unable to refill the Line-Up the game ends.

Each player counts up the VP of all their cards, subtracting any weakness cards from the total score. The player with the highest score wins

Components

111x Main Deck cards

36x Punch cards

16x Vulnerability cards

16x Kick cards

12x Super-Villain cards

20x Weakness cards

7x Oversized Superhero cards

1x Rulebook

Theme

A Super Hero themed deck builder of daring do

Replay Value

I wouldn't say it has a great deal, yes n two games will be exactly the same but most games will be very similar. Especially for those who work out that you can win by recruiting Hal Jordan and collecting the Power Rings of all the different Lantern Corps. It's a good filler game for a game day

Favourite Part

It's super heroes what's not to love? Plus the Green Lantern Gambit

Least Favourite Part

My opponent figuring out the Green Lantern Gambit and getting the Power Rings before me

Expansions

There are stand alone games for this game to integrate with such as the original DC Deck Building Game, Forever Evil, Confrontations plus a number of expansions such as the Crossover and Crisis series of expansion packs. Each pack adds to the replayability by changing up the game in different ways

The Bottom Line

This is a nice and simple Deck Builder. It's not on par with the Legendary Series of Deck Building Games but it's a good alternative. The artwork is great and looks like it's been lifted right out of the comics. It's always worth a try, even if just to compare with other Deck Building games.

Score

8/10 Kapows

Game Designers: Erik V Larsen

Game Artists: N/A

Publishers: Cryptozoic Entertainment

Images courtesy of BoardGameGeek