n the X-Men trading card game, each player leads a group of the world's favorite mutants. Players race to be first to knock out two supervillains. The competition heats up because there are only four supervillains to choose from, so competing players might be trying to take down the same villain.
X-Men has a very clear and rigid sequence of play compared to most other TCGs. Each player starts by drawing a card. He or she may then play a Lightning card, which has an immediate effect, such as healing a character or forcing the opponent to discard. The player then plays a Mission card, which causes that player's mutant heroes to attack a villain. The player then designates a different villain to attack the opponent's heroes. Players alternate this sequence until someone wins.
Combat, whether launched by heroes or villains, utilizes strength, skill or power. Each character is rated in each of these areas. The defender's strength in the selected area is subtracted from the attacker's, then the attacking player rolls a number of dice equal to the difference. Each die roll can result in damage to the attacker, damage to the defender, or activation of an attacker or defender's unique mutant power.
Each player uses either a preconstructed deck from the two-player set or a customized deck made from cards soon to be available in booster packs. The two-player set contains characters featured in the movie, while the boosters will contain a much wider cast taken from the X-Men comics.
A straightforward slugging match
The presentation of X-Men is acceptable but not outstanding. The art on the cards is full of action and looks like comic book art, although not like great comic book art. The basic rules are spelled out on a colorful playmat, with some additional details provided in a thin rulebook, but both are vague on enough points that finding errata or clarifications online is probably a necessity. The included dice and damage counters are a nice touch but are not sufficient to actually play the game (players will have to find more dice and improvise more damage counters in order to play).
Using the preconstructed decks, the game is effectively a slugging match: players take turns beating on the villains until one delivers a massive knockout blow. The villains, while formidable, are heavily outnumbered and don't really have a chance of knocking out any of the heroes if everybody plays competently. The major break in the monotony is choosing which mutant power to use each turn, but 90 percent of the time the choice is pretty obvious.
As a result there's not much strategy to X-Men. Players will not wrinkle their brows and ponder difficult decisions as they might when playing, for instance, Magic: The Gathering. And the strict turn order and non-interactive card play means that there is not much for the defending player to do each turn but plan what to do next attack. New cards from the boosters should make a wider range of strategies available, but will probably not change the essential I-go-then-you-go nature of the game.
On the other hand, this simplicity makes the game suitable for casual play without serious emotional commitment, and the indirect competition (players battling the villains rather than each other) should stifle the hard feelings that TCGs can create between players. The game moves right along and there's always something happening. It's just that, too often, what's happening is something one player has no control over. It's less like a two-player card game and more like two-player solitaire.
